The plate itself is not the difficulty. It is a flowering stem of Pulmonaria officinalis, seven or eight blossoms in different stages, and the calyces are maddening because the hairs catch the light and you cannot fake them with a wash. Four weeks at the pace this needs is four weeks where not much else gets done. I said 2,400 euros.

Then I heard myself explain, at some length, that this included the colour study and the vellum and that I do not charge extra for revisions within reason. As though the figure needed defending in court. She had not questioned it. She said yes before I had finished the sentence.

I have been turning this over all evening. The apologising is the problem, not the number. If I am going to name a price I should name it and stop, the way one puts down a brush. I am not sure I know how to do that yet, but I know the flinching costs me something even when the client pays.

What I cannot decide is whether 2,400 for four weeks is generous to her or to me. I have done the arithmetic on hours and it is respectable, but a plate like this one will still be on a wall in fifty years and my hourly rate will not be the thing anyone remembers.