I grew cold all over, and trembled so that I could hardly speak.

“Ivor would know that I’m incapable of such baseness.”

“I’m not sure he’d hold you above it.  ’Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’—­and he has scorned you—­for an actress.”

It was as if she had struck me in the face:  and I could feel the blood rush up to my cheeks.  They burned so hotly that the tears were forced to my eyes.

“You see I’m right, don’t you?” Lisa asked.

“You may be right in thinking I could do him no good in that way—­and that he wouldn’t wish it, even if I could.  But not about the rest,” I said.  “We won’t talk of it any more.  I can’t stand it.  Please go back to your room now, Lisa, I want to be alone.”

“Very well,” she snapped, “you called me in.  I didn’t ask to come.”

Then she went out, with not another word or look, and slammed the door.  I could imagine myself compelling her to give up the brocade bag, or offering her some great bribe of money, thousands of pounds, if necessary.  Lisa is a strange little creature.  She will do a good deal for money.

CHAPTER XVI

DIANA UNDERTAKES A STRANGE ERRAND

If I had not been tingling with anger against Lisa, who had seemed to enjoy saying needlessly cruel things to me, perhaps I would have been utterly discouraged when she pricked the bubble of my hope.  She had made me realise that the plan I had was useless, perhaps worse than useless; but in my desperate mood I caught at another.  I would try to see Ivor, and find out some other way of helping him.  At all events he should know that I was for him, not against him, in this time of trouble.

Perhaps this new idea was a mad one, I told myself.  Perhaps I should not be allowed to see him, even in the presence of others.  But while there was a “perhaps” I wouldn’t give up.  Without waiting for a cooler or more cowardly mood to set in, I almost ran out of my room, and downstairs, for I hadn’t taken off my hat and coat since coming in.

I had no knowledge of French law, or police etiquette, or anything of that sort.  But I knew the French as a gallant nation; and I thought that if a girl should go to the right place begging for a short conversation with an accused man, as his friend, an interview—­probably with a witness—­might possibly be granted.  The authorities might think that we were engaged, for all I cared.  I did not care about anything now, except seeing Ivor, and helping him if I could.

I hardly knew what I meant to do at the beginning, by way of getting the chance I wanted, until I had asked to have a motor-cab called for me.  Then, I suddenly thought of the British Ambassador, a great friend of Uncle Eric’s and Aunt Lilian’s.  Uncle Eric had already been to him, but I fancied not with a view of trying to see Ivor.  That idea had apparently not been in his mind at all.  Anyway, the Ambassador would already understand that the family took a deep interest in the fate of Ivor Dundas, and would not be wholly astonished at receiving a call from me.  Besides, hearing of some rather venturesome escapades of mine when I first arrived in London, he had once, while visiting Uncle Eric, laughed a good deal and said that in future he would be “surprised at nothing an American girl might do.”