And she especially attacked the striking down, in 2013, of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v Holder, on the supposition that racism had waned enough to discard it. That, she wrote, was “like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.” Being contrary, she needed to be extra sharp. She took pride in the speed with which she wrote opinions, and in their clarity. Twice a week she lifted weights, did push-ups and generally honed herself into a lean, Armani-clad contender.

Yet she did not see herself as disruptive, let alone an activist. If she became more of a dissenter with the years, it was because the court, after 2006, swung over to the activist right. At heart she was still what she had always been, a judicial minimalist. She was stunned by the lack of caution in the Roe v Waderuling of 1973 that legalised abortion; though she certainly approved of the outcome, reform should have come through state legislatures, where it was slowly starting to appear. She was shocked too when the court, while upholding Obamacare, found it illegal under the commerce clause of the constitution; that had been Congress’s domain since the 1930s.

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