‘She looks just like my mother,’ he whispered loudly to Bella, who gave a snort of laughter.

A fat woman in front turned round and shushed angrily. Rupert’s shoulders shook. Bella gazed firmly in front of her but found she couldn’t stop giggling.

‘I say,’ said Rupert a minute later, ‘shall we go?’

‘We can’t,’ said Bella horrified. ‘Not in the middle of an act.’

‘Will you be quiet,’ hissed the fat woman.

‘My wife feels faint,’ Rupert said to her and, grabbing Bella by the hand, he dragged her along the row, tripping over everyone’s feet.

Outside the theatre they looked at each other and burst into peals of laughter.

‘Wasn’t it awful?’ he said. ‘I wanted to impress you, taking you to a first night, but this really was the end.’

As they picked their way through Covent Garden’s debris of cabbage leaves and rotten apples he took her hand. ‘We’ll have a nice dinner to make up for it.’

They dined in Soho; very expensively, Bella decided. Crimson velvet menus with gold tassels, and rose petals floating in the finger bowls. They sat side by side on a red velvet banquette, rather like being in the back row of the cinema.

‘What do you want to eat?’ Rupert asked her.

‘Anything except herrings.’

He laughed. ‘Why not herrings?’

Bella shivered. ‘My mother forced me to eat them when I was young. I was locked in the dining-room for twelve hours once.’

Rupert looked appalled. ‘But I’ve never had to eat anything I didn’t like.’

‘This is a nice place,’ said Bella.

‘It’s a haunt of my father’s,’ said Rupert. ‘He says it’s the one place in London one never sees anyone one knows.’

‘Rupert, darling!’ A beautiful woman with wide-set violet eyes was standing by their table.

‘Lavinia.’ He stood up and kissed her. ‘How was Jamaica?’