‘I thought it was better not to fight it?’
‘Did you scream and yell half a mile underground in the Cheddar Gorge?’
‘No. But I wasn’t a pathological specimen suffering from overwork.’
He smiled suddenly. ‘It’s extraordinary how comforting it is to be called a pathological specimen. Or rather, to be called a pathological specimen in just those tones.’
‘Do you remember the day at Varese when it rained and we went to the museum and saw those specimens in bottles?’
‘Yes; you were sick on the pavement outside.’
‘Well, you were sick when we had sheep’s heart for lunch because you had watched it being stuffed,’ she said instantly.
‘Lalla, darling,’ he said, beginning to laugh, ‘you haven’t grown-up at all.’
‘Well, it’s nice that you can still laugh, even if it’s only at me,’ she said, caught out in that flash of childhood rivalry. ‘Say when you want to go on.’
‘Now.’