“I-I think you are right there,” Aria said. “I will answer them as kindly as I can.”
He pushed the letters on one side.
“No! Don’t do that,” he said. “Send them each twenty pounds.”
“All of them?”
“Yes! All of them,” he answered. “It won’t hurt me and it will please them.”
“That is very generous of you,” Aria smiled.
“Generous!”
He gave a bitter laugh.
“Well, I suppose I get something out of it. The adulation of people who are always trying to extract something out of me and a niche in the social life of England. Money can buy all those things, you know. It can even buy friendship – and love.”
“It depends what sort of love,” Aria said quietly.
“Any sort of love,” he said firmly. “Shall I tell you something it cannot buy?”
He rose to his feet as he spoke and walked across to the
