I’VE HAD TWO ODD conversations with old ladies this week. One thought I knew her, but I never discovered her name. We sat next to each other at dinner. She had come on the bus, but bore signs of being rich. Her clothes seemed well made and she wore a beautiful emerald ring. Her voice was not exactly cockney, but it wasn’t Received Pronunciation. After my desultory conversational sallies about what spectacles to wear and the virtues of El Greco, she told me a remarkable story.