‘And you don’t like your father?’

‘I adore him,’ Helen said truthfully. ‘I also adore my brothers, but I’ll go to the stake before I marry anyone like them. Honestly, they still think they’re back in the old country. And my brothers have never seen the old country.’

Indignation was bringing a sparkle to her eyes which turned them into pure magic, he thought. She should get mad more often. It suited her. But he knew better than to voice such an old-fashioned compliment. He didn’t want her wine poured over the shirt he’d bought only that afternoon. To draw her out he asked, ‘What part of Italy is the “old country”?’

‘Sicily,’ she said in tones of deep exasperation. ‘A land where “men are men and women know their place”. Would you believe, I’ve actually heard my father say that?’

‘Easily. If the men of Sicily are used to their privileges they’re not going to give them up without a fight.’

‘Well, I know how to fight too,’ she said darkly.

‘I’ll bet you do. If I was brave and foolhardy I might say that you show your Sicilian ancestry every time you open your mouth.’

‘What?’

‘I mean that Latin temper of yours. Pure southern Italian.’ Catching her wrathful eye on him, he added hastily, ‘But since I’m a coward I won’t say it.’

‘Very wise!’ Then she sighed and said, ‘I’m sorry. I go on about it too much, and I shouldn’t bend your ear. That’s not what you came here for.’

‘Isn’t it?’ he murmured. ‘I’m beginning to think that’s exactly what I came here for.’

Next moment a glamorous young woman detached herself from the crowd, flung an arm about his shoulders and planted a theatrical kiss on his mouth.

‘Bye, sweetie,’ she intoned breathily.

Helen recognised Angela Havering, a fellow trainee whom she’d never liked, she now realised. Angela bestowed a second kiss for good measure before floating off on the arm of another man.