If he had tried to look abashed at the effects of his earlier untoward remarks, all sheepishness was then forgot as she asked him about poetry. Barnaby beamed, delighted and gratified that she could tell this of him, just by a few turns of a phrase and name-dropping some sordid old verses.

“You could say so, indeed,” Barnaby said, all false modesty; he might have fluttered his eyelashes to feign this. “Though I tend to put my verses to song – make musical compositions of them, you see.” He tilted his head at her. “Do you play anything, perchance?” (He was always looking for people to accompany his songs, or make notations.)

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