“So it was—­so it would have been,” she faltered, “if it hadn’t been for—­what we said last night about—­Paris.  And then—­I can’t explain to you, Ivor, any more than it seems you can to me.  But I did hear you meant to go there, and—­after our talk, I couldn’t believe it.  I didn’t come to the station to find you; I came because I was perfectly sure I wouldn’t find you, and wanted to prove that I hadn’t found you.  Yet—­you’re here.”

“And, though I am here, you will trust me just the same,” I said, as firmly as I could.

“Of course.  I’ll trust you, if—­”

“If what?”

“If you’ll tell me just one little, tiny thing:  that you’re not going to see Maxine de Renzie.”

“I may see her,” I admitted.

“But—­but at least, you’re not going on purpose?”

This drove me into a corner.  Without being disloyal to the Foreign Secretary, I could not deny all personal desire to meet Maxine.  Yet to what suspicion was I not laying myself open in confessing that I deliberately intended to see her, having sworn by all things a man does swear by when he wishes to please a girl, that I didn’t wish to see Maxine, and would not see Maxine?

“You said you’d trust me, Di,” I reminded her.  “For Heaven’s sake don’t break that promise.”

“But—­if you’re breaking a promise to me?”

“A promise?”

“Worse, then!  Because I didn’t ask you to promise.  I had too much faith in you for that.  I believed you when you said you didn’t care for—­anyone but me.  I’ve told Lisa.  It doesn’t matter our speaking like this before her.  I asked you to wait for my promise for a little while, until I could be quite sure you didn’t think of Miss de Renzie as—­some people fancied you did.  If you wanted to see her, I said you must go, and you laughed at the idea.  Yet the very next morning, by the first train, you start.”

“Only because I am obliged to,” I hazarded in spite of the Foreign Secretary and his precautions.  But I was punished for my lack of them by making matters worse instead of better for myself.

“Obliged to!” she echoed.  “Then there’s something you must settle with her, before you can be—­free.”

The guard was shutting the carriage doors.  In another minute I should lose the train.  And I must not lose the train.  For her future and mine, as well as Maxine’s, I must not.

“Dearest,” I said hurriedly, “I am free.  There’s no question of freedom.  Yet I shall have to go.  I hold you to your word.  Trust me.”

“Not if you go to her—­this day of all days.”  The words were wrung from the poor child’s lips, I could see, by sheer anguish, and it was like death to me that I should have to cause her this anguish, instead of soothing it.

“You shall.  You must,” I commanded, rather than implored.  “Good-bye, darling—­precious one.  I shall think of you every instant, and I shall come back to you to-morrow.”