"Probably something similar to what it says about me that I'm practicaclly only ever enjoying myself when I'm in a state of crisis," Una replied. She lit Starbuck's cigarette for her (cupping the other woman's hand lightly in her own as she did so) and then lit her own.

"Nobility and perversity aren't necessarily mutually exclusive," she said. "I've seen men and women act in extraordinary ways in the darkest, bleakest days; and many are just as capable of terrible behaviour in times of light. It's the human condition, I suppose."