Alida was sure that her father had never regretted the fact that he was forced to leave the Diplomatic Service, but it must have been in many ways hurtful for him to realise that his brother disapproved so strongly of his wife.
All the time they lived in Paris not one single Shenley relative had ever come to call on them.
Yet never, Alida told herself, had two people been as happy as her father and mother had been together.
They had very little money, only a small annuity that an aunt had settled on her father on her death and which had ceased when he died. But they had been happy.
Looking back, their house, small though it had been and in an unfashionable part of Paris, had always seemed full of light and sunshine.
They had been surrounded by friends, friends who had talent, friends
