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chase some lion or whatnot into the great white hunter’s field of fire and, if he misses, there is a professional there to finish it off.’
    ‘But not in Hoden’s case.’
    ‘No, but he was an arrogant . . . Oh well, de mortuis nihil loquitur nisi bonum and all that. I remember that he was an awful bully at school, though. Perhaps that was where he
learnt the fun of chasing animals.’ He snuffled again and Edward wondered, if Thoroughgood did offer him a job, whether he could bear to be associated with him.
    Over lunch – ‘the potted shrimps and then the kidneys, please, George. Same for you, old boy?’ – they talked generalities: Abyssinia, the old King’s funeral, the
new King’s raffish companions – ‘all cocks and cocktails’ as Thoroughgood put it vulgarly – and the inferiority of the club claret of which, nevertheless, Thoroughgood
managed to dispose of two bottles. He seemed interested in what Edward had to say about New York’s smart set. ‘They are anglophile on the whole, are they? Or is it just that they
“love a lord” like everyone else?’
    Edward was rather put out. It was as if Thoroughgood enjoyed taunting him and he was half-tempted to get up there and then and leave him to it, but something stopped him. Thoroughgood, whatever
else he was, was no fool and it occurred to him that he might be being tested in some way. He held his peace and explained that, though the English certainly had some snob-appeal in New York, the
Americans he had met could not be considered Anglophile if that meant sharing the British view of world affairs.
    Thoroughgood was on to this like a hawk on a rabbit. ‘You mean they envy us our empire?’
    ‘I don’t know about that,’ Edward said. ‘I never discussed it with them, but if you mean would they fight alongside us if, God forbid, it ever came to war with Germany, I
would say they wouldn’t.’ Thoroughgood seemed to be considering this because he said nothing but heaped Stilton on to a Bath Oliver biscuit. ‘Mind you,’ Edward went on,
‘I was only in New York and its environs, and even there I was meeting a highly unrepresentative slice of the population. I have no idea what they think about England in Washington, or
anywhere else. I don’t suppose they consider us much at all. I was struck by how little news of Europe there was in the newspapers over there.’
    ‘Shall we have coffee in the library?’ said Thoroughgood. ‘We can be quiet there and there are one or two things I want to talk to you about in private.’
    So I was right! Edward said to himself and he was curious to hear what his host thought wise to keep from long ears.
    Thoroughgood seated himself by the fire in one of the huge, dilapidated brown armchairs and rang the bell. He ordered port for himself. Edward declined, wanting to keep a reasonably clear head.
As it was, the hot room was making him sleepy.
    ‘You were in the States for six months and never went out of New York?’ said Thoroughgood, looking past Edward at the leather-bound volumes on the shelf behind him. ‘I thought
you were a bit of a traveller. But then I forgot; you had your hands full, didn’t you? What’s the gel’s name? They say she’s Weaver’s illegitimate daughter,
don’t they?’
    Edward was taken aback by this sudden stab of malice even though he knew it was Thoroughgood’s way of trying to put him off balance.
    ‘You mean Miss Pageant?’ he inquired mildly. ‘She is a friend of mine, yes. Why do you ask?’
    ‘Oh, we thought it was more than that,’ said Thoroughgood nastily.
    ‘Who is the “we” you talk about, who have been kind enough to interest themselves in my affairs?’ Edward was trying hard to keep his temper.
    ‘Oh, did I say “we”?’ said Thoroughgood vaguely. ‘It was just an expression.’
    ‘Look, Thoroughgood, if you’ve got something to say to me for God’s sake say it. I don’t think the women in my life have anything to do with