Mexico Set

by Len Deighton

She’d learned to respect wealth, and the wealthy, in a way that only a poverty-stricken childhood teaches. She was a survivor who’d climbed up the ladder without benefit of any education beyond reading and writing and painting her face, plus a natural ability to count.

And like so many poor people she had only contempt for socialism in any of its various forms, for it is only the rich and guilty who can afford the subtle delights of egalitarian philosophies.

She had the loud voice and upper-class accent that go with weekends in large unheated country houses, where everyone talks about horses and reads Dick Francis paperbacks.

No one could have an affair with Dicky; he’s having an imperishable love affair with himself. What woman could compete with Dicky’s first and only love?’