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'Stop that,' scolded Mrs Damer, scooping the greyhound up in her arms and rubbing its head.

'I imagine pet keeping is a taste one must acquire in childhood.'

'You surprise me; I'd always assumed it came naturally.'

Perhaps you've never known anyone who didn't grow up with lap dogs, thought Eliza sardonically. 'No, I won't even have a canary in my dressing room at Drury Lane. Lord Derby despairs of this lack of sensibility, he says I have a very hard heart.'

Mrs Damer gave her a peculiar smile.

Why had she brought that up? Eliza wondered. Of course, Derby had other good reasons for thinking her cold; didn't the nastier papers call her an icy prude~i She turned towards the clay eagle, now, to hide her face. 'This bird has nothing in common with a tiny greyhound; you must have a great talent for entering into their different natures.'

Mrs Damer smiled at the compliment. 'The ancients would have shown the osprey at his noble best, of course—wings spread, eyes on the horizon.' She spoke as if her visitor only needed reminding. 'But this one is captured, with a smashed wing. I want to seize him in the moment—to make the moment of his fury last for ever. I've shaped his beak very hooked, see? I've taken for my inspiration Giambologna's marvellous turkey-cock in the Grand Duke's Uffizi Gallery—like a shaken bag of feathers—you must know it.'

Eliza nodded vaguely, not wanting to admit that she'd never been any further from England than a visit to her father's relatives in Cork. An odd pause came between them and Eliza couldn't think how to fill it. Mrs Damer picked up a large damp cloth and draped it over the bird. Eliza wondered whether she should take her leave.

'Have a seat, Miss Farren,' said the sculptor, pulling a shabby chair away from the wall and dusting it off. 'I'll be perfectly frank with you, as if I've known you ten years instead of a few weeks. Shall I?'

Eliza had a slightly giddy sensation, as if she was high on a ladder. 'Please do,' she said, sitting down.

'I fled the rehearsal today because I was in danger of laughter.'

'Laughter?' It came out almost as a squeak.

'Yes,' said Mrs Damer, her mouth twisted. 'I wasn't sad when I was talking about unworthy husbands and how little good it does to waste all one's womanly wiles on them, but caught up in angry memories. Then, when I saw the ring of concerned faces around me, all thinking I was grieving for John Damer, I felt bubbling up in my throat a sort of dreadful giggle.'

'Oh.' Eliza felt very naïve.

'That's why I had to clap my hand over my mouth and make a run for it,' Mrs Damer told her. 'Though people think me eccentric already, they'd be far more shocked if I were to burst out laughing at the memory of my dear departed. Even to admit I had the impulse sounds shocking, though we're in private here and you've such a sympathetic eye. You aren't shocked?'—and Mrs Damer glanced sideways at her guest.

'No.' The dog had tucked herself between Eliza's hip pad and the edge of the chair; she wasn't so much of a nuisance when she'd quietened down. Eliza added, more as a statement than a question, 'You don't miss him, then.'

'Not for a moment,' said Mrs Damer and went on picking some dried mud off her sculpting hook.

Eliza felt oddly comfortable in the workshop, despite the draughts and dirt. She put one hand on Fidelle's warm neck. 'Tell me more, if you don't mind? Your parents made the match?'

'Well, yes, but that's only to be expected among people of birth. You, Miss Farren, for instance, would be so much freer to pick and choose.' A pause. 'You're not offended by the observation?'

'No, no,' said Eliza. She never forgot her low origins, of course, but these days it was rare for anyone to remind her of them so baldly.

'Your life is your own, that's all I mean. Whether and whom to marry is no one's decision but yours.'

Eliza felt doubtful on this point. 'I consult my mother on all important points. And it sometimes seems to me as if I have two thousand parents.'

'Your