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‘No, thank you.’ I looked at my watch. I was horrified to see it was almost eleven o’clock. I must have been in the garden talking to Petiso for much longer than I’d thought. ‘Mrs. Mallenport and Hester will be getting back soon.'

‘So?’ He got in beside me.

‘They’ll wonder what’s happened to me.'

‘But they will not worry,’ he switched on the ignition, ‘like we were worried about that rapscallion.’ He put his hand over mine. I half feared and half hoped that he would kiss me again. ‘Will you not let me take you to a
cafe typique?'

‘I’d rather get back.’

‘Even the little fat Nesta has no power to keep you in chains.’

‘Hester is slim, tall and beautiful,’ I corrected as he drew the car away from the kerb. ‘And no, she has no power.’

‘But she is friendly, perhaps, with someone who has?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘She is also of a wilful temperament.'

‘So,’ I said softly, ‘are you.’

He looked at me sideways for a moment. Then he said lightly, ‘But we are not talking about me. We are talking about why you have to get back to the Residence.’

‘It’s just that there are certain rules.’

Don Ramon raised his brows. I wondered if he too thought that I sounded like our Head of Chancery. ‘What rules that a beautiful woman may not break?'

‘I should have booked out.’

‘What is that?’ He turned the car into the traffic and roared up the engine.

‘Written in a book who I was going out with, and where.’

Don Ramón squinted down his nose disapprovingly. I could see he would have liked to make some crack about a British woman’s liberty, but with an effort he forbore. ‘And you did not?’

‘No. I dare not let go of Petiso.’

Don Ramon flicked the car round the corner on to the tree-lined avenue. ‘You had, as they say, to get your priorities right.’

‘That,’ I smiled as we entered the Residence drive, ‘would be the kindly way of putting it.’

‘And how would the Mallenport’s put it?’

‘Oh, they wouldn’t say a word. Besides, they’re not back yet, by the look of it.’

‘She is a gay girl, is she? Miss Mallenport? Frequently out? Much pursued by many men?’

‘Gay in a nice way. And usually it’s Mr. Fitzgerald.’ I bade him goodnight, and thanked him for the lift home. I put my hand on the car door and tried to turn the handle, but it was a more sophisticated kind than I was used to and didn’t work in the usual way, and while I was struggling with it, Don Ramón seized my arm. With a quick movement he pulled me close to him and planted a kiss full on my surprised lips.

I waited for that previous kiss’s magic—but it did not come. This was a hasty, different kiss. It was as if he and I were strangers again. I didn’t feel limp. My bones certainly didn’t melt. My heart didn’t race. I didn’t even return the kiss. Perhaps I needed the spell of that strange compulsive music. Perhaps that kiss had been an illusion like the dance.

I looked up at Don Ramón's face, and saw that his eyes were wide open and abstracted as if his mind was on something else, or as if he were listening. And certainly as if he no longer felt the same magic either.

Yet before I’d time to pull away, we were suddenly bathed in powerful headlights as the official limousine softly swept Mrs. Mallenport and Hester home. If they had noticed, they politely made no comment.

‘I think I should explain ,T said to Mrs. Mallenport as I followed them into the Residence.

‘Only if you really feel you want to, dear.’ Mrs. Mallenport looked greatly perturbed as if till then she had never dreamed that I was that sort of girl. ‘But I think really you should know …' she began speaking to herself again.

But I didn’t hear what she was going to tell herself, for Chico bustled into the hall, all smiles and importance. He took their cloaks quickly and then said urgently to me, ‘There has been a telephone call for you.’ He picked up the pad. ‘From the duty officer.'

I blenched.

I saw Mrs. Mallenport glance down at the booking out book. ‘Didn’t you book out, dear?’ she asked me, more in sorrow than anger.

‘It was an emergency, or at least sort of...' I began to tell her.

‘Well, dear, first let’s have some coffee and then you can get it all off your chest. I don’t suppose, as H.E. would say, that any bones have been broken.’

It was Chico who had the last word. ‘Certainly no bones,
senorita.
The duty officer, yes, at first was angry. Who, he says, have you gone out with? But I fix. I say, as always for Miss Hester, she is out, sir, with Mr. James Fitzgerald.’

I was spared the harshness, though by no means all of Mr. Fitzgerald’s strictures. Because His Excellency Mr. Mallenport returned from Washington at ten o’clock the following morning and, after a brief call at the Residence, immediately took up the reins of office.

I heard him on the other side of the communicating door, talking to Mr. Fitzgerald. Naturally I couldn’t hear what they said, but I distinguished a pleasant older voice, even once or twice laughter, as well as Mr. Fitzgerald’s deeper and, to me, more disquieting tones.

About ten-forty-five, H.E. rang. I picked up my notepad, and with some trepidation opened the communicating door and went in. I saw a chunkily built man in his late fifties of a little above average height, but of very erect carriage, with white hair and a sunburned face, who came from behind his desk with his hand outstretched. His handshake was firm, his smile kindly. He looked like everyone’s idea, I thought, of the perfect father.

‘Well, Madeleine,’ he waved me to a chair and then seated himself behind the desk again, ‘you can close that up,’ he said as I opened my note-pad. ‘You and James have really had your shoulders to the wheel. You’ve left me no work to do. Today I want to hear about you, so we’ll dispense with formality. How have you been getting along? What has it felt like, young lady, to step into Eve’s shoes?’

To myself I thought they felt more like seven-league boots than shoes. But aloud I replied, ‘She sets a very high standard.’

‘Yes,' H.E. smiled, ‘if a thing’s worth doing it’s worth doing well. But you managed?' The last part was a question.

‘With one or two exceptions
,
' I replied, and then to be quite truthful altered that number to, ‘Four or five.'

‘Ah, we all learn by our mistakes.' The Ambassador eyed me with a friendly shrewdness. It was easy to realise why the Charaguayans held him in high regard. It was difficult to realise that perhaps thirty years ago he was an up-and-coming young man like James Fitzgerald. Or conversely that one day, James Fitzgerald might mellow into such a man as H.E.

‘And I have heard some very good things about you, young lady.’

‘From . . .?’ I didn’t like to name names, but it would be gratifying and heartening if Mr. Fitzgerald himself had given me a good report.

‘From all sorts and manners of people,’ H.E. replied diplomatically. ‘You’ve fitted in here like a round peg in a round hole. An Embassy is very like a family. We look warily on new faces.
El amigo y el vino
,
antiguo
.’ And lest my Spanish wasn’t up to that proverb, ‘Friends and wine should be old. But the staff here seem to have taken you very much to their heart.’

He looked at me keenly for a moment as if he might have qualified that remark, then he went on, ‘And my wife and Hester have enjoyed your company.’

‘They’ve been very kind,’ I replied warmly.

‘It’s nice for Hester to have a companion of her own age,’ he went on ruminatively. ‘She can be wayward at times. She is not always the easiest of mortals—but then what woman worth her salt is?’

In other circumstances I might have suggested Eve. But as both she and Hester were contenders for Mr. Fitzgerald’s favours, it would have been tactless to say it then.

‘No doubt she’ll settle down once she’s married. And if my wife reads the signs correctly .. .’ The Ambassador pulled himself up sharply. ‘Yes, well, my wife reads many signs,’ he smiled, ‘and some of them about you.’

I looked surprised, and though I hope I disguised it quickly enough, nervous.

‘She feels you’ve been overdoing it, that you’ve had your nose to the grindstone. You’ve also seen very little, I notice, of the country. It’s fascinating, but full of contradictions, so it takes some knowing.’

There was, I thought, just the gentlest touch of warning behind those words, as if a breath of my friendship with Don Ramon had already reached the Ambassadorial ears, and that in far different and far kinder terms he wanted to warn me as Mr. Fitzgerald had done.

‘However,’ the Ambassador went on, ‘our monthly supply and inspection visit to the Anglo-American seismograph station at Belanga is soon due. Eve used sometimes to come with me. Now you’ll be able to go.’

‘I’d like that,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’

‘It’s an interesting journey. And good company, as they say, makes any journey light.’ He explained that we would travel first by inter-city aircraft and then ride up the mountainside, but that we would be there and back in time for Residence dinner. ‘Well, that’s it, then. I think you and I should get on very well together. Now run along and have a word with James Fitzgerald. He tells me he has a small piece of unfinished business he wants to talk to you about.’

The little unfinished business was not exactly as I thought it was going to be, when I walked through the open grilles of Chancery and knocked on the Head’s door.

I had, I could feel, a flush to my cheeks, and my defence papers were metaphorically clutched in my hot hands. My ears were tuned to the nuances of his ‘Come in,' and my eyes scanned his unsmiling face.

He waved me to a chair and without preamble said curtly, ‘Now let’s get the decks cleared on your latest little do first.’

He raised an eyebrow in mingled invitation and deprecation. I kept silent, until at last I could bear the silence no longer and blurted out, ‘About last night, do you mean?’

‘I do indeed. Unless there’s some other offence as yet undiscovered.’ I saw the faintest quirk touch his firm mouth, a gleam of cruel amusement in his grey eyes.

I shook my head.

‘Well, then, I’ll have your side of it.’ He folded his sunburned arms across his chest, tilted his chair back, and eyed me from under half-closed lids.

‘From the beginning?’

‘From the beginning,’ he repeated calmly, ‘and missing out nothing.’

I embarked on my halting account of last night— Morag’s telephone call, finding Petiso, our conversation together, mostly by mime, Petiso’s nervousness and why I didn’t book out, the taxi, our return to the hostel, Don Ramon’s car being there, Don Ramon giving me a lift home.

Mr. Fitzgerald listened to me impassively and without comment, then my voice trailed away.

‘Come, come, you can’t tire now, Miss Bradley. Surely you’ve just come to the interesting bit?'

I gritted my teeth, and eyed him with real dislike. ‘All right,’ I gulped. ‘When we got to the Residence Don Ramón kissed me—but it was nothing. And then Mrs. Davenport and Hester returned and they saw us, but...'

‘But after my warnings, why?’

I didn’t know, so I didn’t answer.

‘And it wasn’t for the first time, was it?’

‘No.’

I saw him go white with anger at my definite monosyllable.

‘And
then
it wasn’t nothing?’

‘No.’

With difficulty he controlled his anger. When he spoke again he was perfectly quiet in tone and dispassionate in manner. ‘Why did you tell Chico to inform any caller that you were out with me?’

‘Oh, I didn’t, I swear,’ I answered hotly. ‘There’s one crime that you can’t lay at my door.’

Mr. Fitzgerald stared at me thoughtfully. ‘That’s all right,’ he replied equably after a moment. ‘There are enough.’

‘Chico means so well. He just wants everyone to be happy, and he often says the first thing that comes into his head. He’s told me . . .'

I stopped myself. Chico had sometimes given the information to me that Hester had been out with Mr. Fitzgerald, but on those occasions it was no doubt true. Mr. Fitzgerald did not prompt me now. He showed no interest in further discussion of Chico.

‘Very well,’ he pronounced as judiciously and gravely as any hanging judge. ‘I accept your explanation on that.’

‘Thank you.’

He raised one eyebrow at that faint flick of sarcasm in my tone.

‘However, I needed you last night to type two new F.O. directives.’

‘I’ll do them now.’

‘That won’t be necessary. I did them myself.’

I sighed. I felt half deflated, half angry at this man’s remarkable facility for putting me always in the wrong.

‘That’s all right. You’ve worked hard since you came here. H.E.’s pleased. There is still, though, the question of discipline and security, which remain my pigeon.’

‘Booking out?’

‘Precisely.’

‘I did try to explain . . .' I began.

‘Your excuses are understandable, Miss Bradley, but the rule is unbreakable. For your good as well as everyone else’s, I must always know where I can find you.’ Though he had let me off lightly, something in the way he uttered those perfectly reasonable words both hurt and angered me.

‘It’s worse than being married!’ I exclaimed.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he replied with his damnable coolness. ‘It isn’t for life. You could always resign—or I could send you packing.’

He waited for a long time to let that sink in. I listened to two near misses in the square outside, a group of Indians calling their wares, the eleven o’clock carillon of bells. Then I asked humbly, ‘Is that all, then, Mr. Fitzgerald?’

He looked up suddenly at the sound of my voice and gave me a wintry smile. ‘Just one more thing.’ My heart sank as he drew a pink file towards him and glanced through it. ‘The trip to Belanga seismograph station on Tuesday. H.E. thought it a good idea if you went.’

I smiled with profound relief and nodded. ‘I’m looking forward to it,' I said enthusiastically.

He looked at me curiously. His voice was terse. ‘You surprise me. I would have thought you would have found it arduous and trying in the extreme.’