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They were almost the exact words, though uttered with some loving severity by Mrs. Mallenport that same evening.

The Residence when I returned was in a feminine fluster. ‘H.E.,’ Mrs. Mallenport murmured, as I came into the hall, in her manner of speaking more to her alter ego than to the hearer, ‘expects us to up sticks at the drop of a hat.'

All the same, she looked pink and pleased, and in a moment Hester appeared at the top of the stairs with a satiny evening dress draped over her arm.

‘Something marvellously exciting,’ Hester called down to me. ‘The Washington conference is going so well that they’ve put on a special reception at the White House.’ She took a deep breath, and slowly descended the stairs as if she were already there, and this was indeed that much famed white marble staircase. ‘We’ve just had a phone call from Washington. Mother and I are to fly up.’

‘Tomorrow,’ said Mrs. Mallenport, trying to look middle-aged and sensible, and succeeding only in looking as starry-eyed as her daughter.

‘So we’ve been sorting through our clothes,' Hester went on, reaching the hall, and holding up an evening gown of stiffened silk in sherry brown, that exactly matched her eyes.

‘It’s a stunning colour,’ I said.

‘Wait till you see it on. I’m just going to get Bianca to press it, then I’ll give you a fashion parade after dinner.’ Her words were punctuated by the sound of tyres on the drive outside, ‘Mother, there’s the car for your hair appointment. Madeleine will give me a hand with mine.’

‘You never thought, dear,’ Mrs. Mallenport smiled, and patted my arm gently as she moved towards the door Chico held open for her, ‘that you’d be letting yourself in for such a hustle and bustle, did you?’

‘She didn’t think she’d be letting herself in for a number of things,’ Hester replied for me, with such a sudden strange look that I remembered Mr. Fitzgerald’s angry remark about the wrong park again. And I wondered again who had told him. The incomparable Eve? Or Hester—young, tempestuous and unpredictable?

She looked, of course, absolutely beautiful in the dress. The colour complimented her eyes, her hair, her skin. But it was the skilful cut that showed off her figure to perfection—her slender waist, her rounded breasts, the heavy silk clinging to her long shapely thighs as she walked up and down her bedroom. The dress was low cut, exceedingly low, and her smooth shoulders were bare.

‘Do you think I should wear a necklace?’

‘No, it’s perfect as it is.’

So it was. If Mr. Fitzgerald could have seen her in that dress, I don’t think Eve would have had a chance. It would have been game, set and match to Hester Mallenport. I asked Hester diffidently if, by any chance, Mr. Fitzgerald was also going up to Washington.

‘Of course not—however much he’d like to. He can’t leave Charaguay till H.E. returns.’

She walked up to the cheval mirror and twirled herself round. ‘Oddly enough, though, I always think of this as
his
dress.’

‘His?’

She looked at me blankly for a moment and then replied. ‘James’. His special one, I mean. The only time I ever wore it before was to a party with him.’ She sat herself down on her dressing-table stool. ‘Two months ago. That was when we really got to know each other. When we began to
like
each other as well as . . .’

‘As?’ I prompted, but she turned her back to me and stared at her own reflection in the mirror. ‘It was then that I found out he wasn’t really in love with Eve.’

She swivelled round suddenly and stared at me challengingly as if I was about to question the truth of that statement.

I said nothing, and she stood up, unzipped her dress, stepped out of it and hung it up in silence. Then she pulled out a box of electrically heated curlers from her dressing-table cupboard, and plugged them in.

‘He just thinks,’ she went on, shaking up a bottle of shampoo vigorously, ‘that Eve is the most marvellous secretary that ever was. That’s all there is to it.’

‘That’s something,’ I said fervently. Something, I might have added, that I’d certainly have given a broken leg and more for. Maybe my tone said it for me.

‘Well, it might be for you,’ Hester replied tartly, ‘but it wouldn’t do for me.’ She tossed the shampoo bottle over to me with some force. ‘I need more than that. I need . . . want...’

I suddenly didn’t want to hear what she needed or wanted. I asked her in a flat voice, ‘Do you want me to shampoo your hair forwards or backwards?’

‘Forwards,’ she said, dragging up her stool to the washbasin and sitting herself down.

‘I want...’ she continued with her face hidden under her wet hair, and my fingers rubbing the soap into her scalp, ‘simply to get married.’

‘I’m sure you will,’ I replied stiffly.

‘I don’t mean to be rude to you, but
I
don’t
want
a career, except my husband’s.’

‘That’s understandable,’ I said without much expression.

‘Though,’ her voice came up muffled, laughing shaki
l
y through the soapy suds, ‘I don’t want
him
to marry
me
because I’m H.E.’s daughter.’

My fingers stopped their rubbing. I actually lifted her up painfully by the hair of her head. ‘That’s a dreadful thing to say,’ I exclaimed fiercely. ‘That’s the very last thing he’d do. He’s not that sort of person. How could you even think such a thing?’

Her hazel eyes looked at me in wide surprise, then she let out a little snort. ‘I keep forgetting you’ve got to know him rather well in a very short time.’ Then her smile faded. ‘But thanks,’ she said softly, ‘I didn’t really mean it. It’s just that one gets mistrustful of happiness.’ Whether it was the shampoo, or the pain of having her hair pulled or some real regret, but now her fine eyes brimmed with tears. ‘And I’m sorry about dropping you in the cart on Monday. I’m sorry I involved you ... but all’s fair in love, isn’t it? And I honestly didn’t realise then ...’ She squeezed my hand in almost sisterly regret.

But she didn’t tell me what she didn’t realise. Nor did she explain how dropping me in the cart with Mr. Fitzgerald could possibly further their love for one another.

I was glad to be on my own. Mrs. Mallenport fussed a bit about my being two whole nights with only the housekeeper and Chico and the guard, but as Hester pointed out, Mrs. Mallenport herself had frequently stayed thus for weeks on end when Hester was at school.

Mr. and Mrs. Green had undertaken the Saturday open house at their home, so I had no worry except my work at the Embassy and, of course, the implacable James Fitzgerald.

He it was who saw Mrs. Mallenport and Hester off at the airport. He finished his dictation to me before he went, and just to rub salt in the wound asked me to repeat again the correct combination to open the key box.

‘On my way back, I shall drop in at the Clinic to have a natter with Eve,’ he told me. ‘But I shall be back for the Aid meeting in H.E.’s office at eleven-thirty,
hora inglesa
.’

He gave me a faint smile as if he expected me to repeat the last two words and smile back at him. But I didn’t.

From Eve’s office window, peering out between Eve’s potted plants, I watched him enter the official car with a lightness of step, and a smiling greeting to the driver. Then he spied an Indian with a barrowful of golden roses. He crooked his finger, and the Indian brought over a huge bouquet. Eve or Hester? I wondered. And then returned to my mountain of typing.

I was aware that he had returned, punctually, of course. And until the meeting broke up for lunch I was acutely conscious of his presence beyond the communicating door.

I wondered if he might join us at what was becoming our regular cold salad plate at the coffee bar opposite. But he disappeared into Chancery and I didn’t see him again until he came in at six to sign the letters I’d done.

‘Shall you be dining alone?’ he asked with a kind of king of the castle official concern.

‘No,’ I shook my head. Chico would be there, so it wasn’t really untrue, and it was a prevarication only to bolster up my pride, but I knew James Fitzgerald thought I had a date and I could see him mentally deciding who it might be and whether he was a suitable escort.

‘Well, don’t make it too late,’ he said, frowning. ‘You know we work Saturday mornings?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll see you tomorrow, then.’ He gave me a curt goodnight, and then just before he left my office and he retired behind the Chancery gates, he said to my astonishment, ‘Oh, by the way, keep tomorrow evening free.’

Mr. Fitzgerald was within Chancery gates again when I arrived at the Embassy that following Saturday morning. I felt particularly fresh and rested. I had gone to bed early the night before, after a light meal served by Chico. The morning was brilliantly fine. My work was up to date. Even Eve’s potted plants appeared to be responding to my care. I was beginning to feel more mistress of the situation. Naturally I was intrigued by what Mr. Fitzgerald’s parting remark (or rather parting order) could have meant. But whatever it was, I would refuse it.

He rang for me almost immediately. We exchanged good mornings and he began dictation which lasted about an hour. Then he pushed aside the files, swung his chair round to face me directly, and said, ‘Now we come to the rather tiresome bit.’

I didn’t look up at him, but the tone of his voice was as if he was half smiling, half pulling down the corners of his mouth.

‘This evening,’ he went on. ‘This reception.’ He handed me a gilt-edged card similar to a hundred I’d already seen that week and which had in Eve’s handwriting on it, ‘Accepted’.

Hernando Comecq
,
Minister of Culture, invites the pleasure of the company of Mr. Fitzgerald and partner to a soiree on Saturday 8.00 p.m., at the Palacio Cultural.

I read it and re-read it, and waited. I felt rather than saw that Mr. Fitzgerald was looking at me expectantly. Somewhere deep inside, I felt a curious sense of disappointment and indignation.

I think he sensed it too. His tone became colder. ‘And partner,’ he said meaningly. ‘That means wives will be present.’

‘Yes,’ I said with equal stoniness.

‘Normally Hester or Eve would accompany me. In their unavoidable absence their mantle, I’m afraid, falls upon
you
.'

He made no attempt to paint the lily. No attempt to disguise the fact that this arrangement was as distasteful to him as it was to me. If he had, I wouldn’t have minded quite so much.

I looked up angrily. ‘I don’t want to go,’ I said sharply. 'What’s more,’ I stood up to give my defiance some physical substance, ‘I haven’t the slightest intention of going.’ A wash of indignation coloured my face. My voice rose, I almost stamped my foot. ‘I wouldn’t go anywhere as anyone’s
third
choice!’ But that wasn’t really why I was angry, was it? It was surely at having to go with this intolerable, this insufferable, this inhuman man anywhere.

Leisurely, Mr. Fitzgerald got to his feet and towered over me. ‘You’ll go, Miss Bradley,’ he said slowly but without raising his voice, ‘and that’s that. I’m sorry you don’t like the circumstances—well, neither do I, but we’ve just got to put up with it. The reception will be an interesting experience. It’ll broaden your horizon. Many girls would give a great deal to go to a do like this.’ He picked up the gold-edged card and held it between his thumb and forefinger.

‘It’s not the
Reception
,’ I exclaimed, clenching my fists, ‘that I mind!’

He looked down at me bleakly for a moment, then he said softly, ‘I see.'

I saw his hard mouth tighten on what I knew would be a damning reply. I knew he was going to say that as a matter of interest he didn’t greatly want my company either. And that knowledge humiliated me even more.

‘In any case we shall see very little of each other. You will talk mostly to the ladies. I’ve already told Chico that you will not be requiring supper. There’s always a great deal of food at these receptions and it’s impolite not to eat well. I’ll pick you up at the Residence at seven- thirty sharp. Remember what I told you about
hora inglesa
.'

He walked over and opened the office door for me. I still stood my ground. But I knew I had lost. ‘I’m only coming,’ I said to salve my pride, ‘on duty.'

‘That goes for both of us,’ he agreed coolly.

‘You are quite insufferable!’ I suddenly burst out. ‘You’ve had too much power far too soon!’

‘And you, my dear girl, have been far too long without a father’s hand.'

He shut the door smartly behind me, as if he might be sorely tempted to repair the omission then and there.

I prepared myself as for a battle. I washed my hair that Saturday afternoon and dried it in the sun. I put on the long dress I’d chosen—not a difficult choice really, as I’d only brought two. It was of cornflower blue cotton covered with little white flowers. It had a slim waist like Hester’s dress, and was sleeveless but with a square neck, not low cut, and with a white lace edging to the full skirt and round the neck. I wore a stiff petticoat underneath and my hair fell loose in its own natural waves round my face.

I made up with care and not excessively. I filled my little chain evening bag with a compact, a comb, a lipstick and a coin or two. At seven-twenty-five I draped the velvet cloak that my mother had given me last Christmas round my shoulders. Then I waited on the landing till promptly and exactly at seven-thirty the doorbell rang.

I heard Chico cross the hall and open it. Then, like Hester had done, I slowly descended the staircase, the cloak falling loosely back behind me, till halfway down I took it off and draped it over my arm.

For several seconds Mr. Fitzgerald stood staring silently up at me. He looked handsome and distinguished in his white dinner jacket. Chico had retired to a discreet distance out of immediate earshot, and I was very conscious that Mr. Fitzgerald and I were alone. Conscious that some part of me wanted to pretend that this was a normal party date, and that Mr. Fitzgerald was picking me up because he wanted to and not because duty declared that he must.