THE SMELL OF STONE GREETED HER AGAIN as she made her way up the stairs to Millie’s flat. Of course she might not be in, Isabel realised. Millie liked the theatre and would have that evening several hundred Festival Fringe performances to choose from. It could be an entirely wasted trip—as well as representing the abandonment of her resolution not to get involved. But resolutions were aspirational, Isabel knew; honesty required one to acknowledge that.

Millie came to the door in a blue chinoiserie dressing gown. It must have been elegant once, but was now somewhat crumpled and worn, the silk lapels dull and frayed.

“I’m unannounced,” Isabel said. “I hope you’re not …” She hesitated, her eye drawn to the room beyond. “Not entertaining.”

Millie shook her head and gestured for Isabel to enter. “I was planning to go out to a show, but I had a headache.”

“I’m sorry.”

Millie invited Isabel to sit down, moving a newspaper off a chair as she did so. “And then it went. I have the occasional migraine, but they have this new stuff that you swallow immediately and it stops it in its tracks.” She touched her brow gingerly, as if afraid to reawaken the pain. “Would you like something—coffee? Tea? I don’t have any wine, I’m afraid, and I never have spirits. I’d just drink them, I suspect, and then where would we be?”

Isabel sat down. “I was at an exhibition. ‘The Classical Impulse.’ There was a lovely Poussin.”

“Not for me,” said Millie. “For people who like Poussin, perhaps.”

Isabel nodded. “Many would agree.” She paused. She had imagined that Millie might be puzzled by her visit. “I had to come to see you.”

“I thought you might,” said Millie. “After your last visit, I told myself I’d see you again quite soon.”

Isabel was surprised. Did Millie realise that she had given herself away? Not that a positive answer to that question would change what Isabel intended to say. It made it easier, perhaps, but did not fundamentally alter the message she had come to give.

Isabel steeled herself. “You might say that this is none of my business. You might say that I should keep out of it.”

Millie hesitated before replying, and Isabel realised that this was precisely what her friend must be thinking. But when she did reply, it was calmly, and without any sign of irritation. “I wouldn’t say that.” She looked directly at Isabel. “Friends have to interfere from time to time.”

Taken aback, Isabel took a moment to decide what to say next. “The only reason I’ve come to see you is that I believe that your affair with George is possibly putting you in danger. I think that Roz MacLeod is a bit unstable and might do something foolish if she found out—”

Millie stopped her. “My affair with George?”

Isabel felt her breath come quickly; the chemicals of fear, she thought. “I believe that you’re having an affair with George. You lied to me, you see. Sorry to have to say that, Millie, but you lied to me. You gave yourself away when you made that comment on the Elephant House. I didn’t say anything about our having met there, but you knew that was where the meeting had taken place. Whom did you hear it from? From George, I assume.”

Millie stared at her. Her lips moved slightly, as if she were about to speak, but she said nothing.

“And then,” Isabel continued, “Roz hounded me down in the supermarket. She was hysterical—about her suspicions about George, about their rotten marriage, all the affairs—and I formed the opinion that she was unstable. I decided to come and tell you that you should be careful. That’s all.” She hesitated. The next part would be difficult. “But what upsets me, Millie, is that you betrayed me as a friend. I told you about how I was being falsely accused by Roz and you said nothing. You said nothing at all. You could have relieved me of my anxiety right there and then by telling me. But you didn’t.”

There was a silence. Isabel did not look at Millie’s face but stared instead out of the window behind her. This, she told herself, is how some friendships end. Things are said that cannot be unsaid: a cliché, of course, but one of complete accuracy.

Millie suddenly stood up. She’s going to ask me to leave, thought Isabel. But she did not; she crossed to the window and stood there, looking out at her washing line, which bore an odd mixture of unidentifiable garments. “Have you ever thought?” she said. “Have you ever thought of just how wrong we can sometimes be?”

The philosopher in Isabel wanted to ask: Wrong in what sense? But she said nothing.

Millie turned round. There was no anger in her. “I’m friendly with George,” she said quietly. “He’s a very good friend. But we are not lovers. That is just not true.”

“Well, I have every reason—”

Millie interrupted her. “However, you’re right that I misled you. I did. I misled you badly.”

Isabel waited.

“You see,” Millie went on. “There is also a friendship between me and Roz. It is very close. Or was close, should I say. Very.”

“I see.”

“No,” said Millie. “I don’t think you do, Isabel. Roz is somebody who can fall in love with both men and women.” She paused. “And does.” She paused again. “And I’m the same.”

Isabel stared at her friend. She should have told me. No, she should not. These things can be entirely private, if people want it that way.

“George still loves Roz,” Millie continued. “He loves her dearly. And she loves him too. I understood that, and I feel bad about ever getting involved with her in the first place. I urged her to stay with him—I broke up what was between us. And then I confessed to him what had happened, and he said that he had known all along—it happened from time to time, and he knew. He forgave me.”

“But the window cleaner,” protested Isabel. “What was that about?”

Millie allowed herself a smile. “We think of window cleaners as men. But do they have to be?”

Isabel returned the smile, tentatively. “A sexist assumption on my part.”

“Exactly.”

“But why would she go on about George having affairs?”

Millie shrugged. “Anxiety on her part. Guilt.”

“I wondered about that.”

“Then you were right.”

“She should get help.”

“She is,” said Millie. “I’ve arranged it. There’s a therapist I know who has agreed to take her on. She’s very good.”

Millie sat down again and reached for Isabel’s hand. “So,” she said. “That’s that. All I have to say now to you is: sorry. I’m sorry that I haven’t been exactly straight with you. But then, you see, I’m not exactly straight myself.”

They both laughed. Then Isabel said, “I’m sorry too, Millie. I’m sorry that I misunderstood everything.”

“Your misunderstanding is entirely understandable,” said Millie. “That’s what I tell my students, you know—when they get things wrong, as they do with distressing frequency.”

“And how do they react?” Isabel asked.

“They laugh,” said Millie. “Which is, I suppose, one of the healthiest ways of reacting to anything. To the world. To our silly attempts to make something of our lives. To all the curious ways we have of complicating our existence.”

They stayed together for another twenty minutes. Then Isabel, noticing the time, explained that she had to meet Jamie at the exhibition. She did not mention the dinner they planned. It appeared that Millie would be alone that night, and Isabel wanted to be tactful. To have another person to have dinner with: it was a simple and entirely adequate goal in life, but not one that everybody, it seemed, could attain.

The Café St. Honoré was busy, but not so crowded as to prevent an intimate conversation at the table. Isabel told Jamie what had happened, and he listened gravely.

“I would have reached exactly the same conclusion myself,” he said. “Don’t blame yourself.”

“I’m not blaming myself,” she said. “I just feel foolish.”

“But we’re all foolish,” he said. “And you’re far less foolish than anybody I know.”

She smiled at him. “Flatterer.”

“It’s true.”

“Then you’re very kind.” He was kinder that anybody she knew, to borrow his phrase. Far kinder. And more gentle. And more lovely in every respect.

“I wish Poussin could have painted you,” she said suddenly.

Jamie looked at her in astonishment. “Why on earth do you say that?”

“Because it’s true,” she said. “And because, in general, it’s better for things to be true than to be false.”

He thought about this. “Of course.” They had been studying the menu over a glass of light white wine. Now he returned to his scrutiny of the evening’s offerings. Something caught his eye.

“Poussin,” he said.

“There you are,” said Isabel.