She picked up a box of matches from the table, and coming across seated herself on the arm of my chair.

“Have I?” she said simply.  “Well, you taught me them.”

She struck a match and held it to my cigarette.

“How did you manage it?” I asked.

“Oh, it was easy enough.  I asked Lord Lammersfield to bring him here one day.  You know what George is like; he would never refuse to do anything a Cabinet Minister suggested.  Of course he had no idea who I was until he arrived.”

“It must have been quite a pleasant surprise for him,” I said grimly.  “Did he recognize you at once?”

Joyce shook her head.  “He had only seen me at the trial, and I had my hair down then.  Besides, two years make a lot of difference.”

“They’ve made a lot of difference in you,” I said.  “They’ve turned you from a pretty child into a beautiful woman.”

With a little low, contented laugh Joyce again laid her head on my shoulder.  “I think,” she said, “that that’s the only one of George’s opinions I’d like you to share.”

There was a moment’s silence.  Then I gently twisted one of her loose curls round my finger.

“My poor Joyce,” I said, “you seem to have been wading in some remarkably unpleasant waters for my sake.”

She shivered slightly.  “Oh, it was hateful in a way, but I didn’t care.  I knew George was hiding something that might help to get you out of prison, and what did my feelings matter compared with that!  Besides—­” she smiled mockingly—­“for all his cleverness and his wickedness George is a fool—­just the usual vain fool that most men are about women.  It’s been easy enough to manage him.”

“He knows who you are now, of course?” I said.

She nodded.  “I told him.  He would have been almost certain to find out, and then he would probably have been suspicious.  As it is he thinks our meeting was just pure chance.”

“But surely,” I objected, “he must have guessed you were on my side?”

She gave a short, bitter laugh.  “Yes,” she said, “he guessed that all right.  It’s what he calls ‘a sacred bond between us.’  There are times, you know, when George is almost funny.”

“There are times,” I said, “when he must make Judas Iscariot feel sick.”

“I sometimes wonder why I haven’t killed him,” she went on slowly.  “I think I should have if he had ever tried to kiss me.  As it is—­” she laughed again in the same way—­“as it is we are becoming great friends.  He is taking me out to dinner at the Savoy tonight.”

“But if he doesn’t try to make love to you—­” I began.

“Oh!” she said, with a little shrug of her shoulders, “that’s coming.  At present he imagines that he is being clever and diplomatic.  Also there’s a business side to the matter.”

“Yes,” I said; “there would be with George.”

“He’s horribly frightened of you.  Of course he tries to hide it from me, but I can see that ever since you escaped from prison he has been living in a state of absolute terror.  His one idea at present is a frantic hope that you will be recaptured.  That’s partly where I come in.”