How long we kept the luckless Jack waiting on the mat I can’t say, but at last Joyce detached herself, and crossing the room, opened the door.  Jack came in carrying a basket in one hand and a table-cloth in the other.  If he felt any surprise at finding Joyce with her hair down he certainly didn’t betray it.

“I got what I could, Mademoiselle,” he observed, putting down his burdens.  “Oyster patties, galatine, cheese-cakes, and a bottle of champagne.  I hope that will please Mademoiselle?”

“It sounds distinctly pleasing, Jack,” said Joyce gravely.  “But then you always do just what I want.”

The boy flushed with pleasure, and began to lay the table without even so much as bestowing a glance on me.  It was easy enough to see that he adored his young mistress—­adored her far beyond questioning any of her actions.

All through lunch—­and an excellent lunch it was too—­Joyce and I were ridiculously happy.  Somehow or other we seemed to drop straight back into our former jolly relations, and for the time I almost forgot that they had ever been interrupted.  In spite of all she had been through since, Joyce, at the bottom of her heart, was just the same as she had been in the old days—­impulsive, joyous, and utterly unaffected.  All her bitterness and sadness seemed to slip away with her grown-up manner; and catching her infectious happiness, I too laughed and joked and talked as cheerfully and unconcernedly as though we were in truth back in Chelsea with no hideous shadow hanging over our lives.  I even found myself telling her stories about the prison, and making fun of one of the chaplain’s sermons on the beauties of justice.  At the time I remembered it had filled me with nothing but a morose fury.

It was the little clock on the mantlepiece striking a quarter to three which brought us back to the realities of the present.

“I must go, Joyce,” I said reluctantly, “or I shall be running into some of your Duchesses.”

She nodded.  “And I’ve got to do my hair by three, and turn myself back from Joyce into Mademoiselle Vivien—­if I can.  Oh, Neil, Neil; it’s a funny, mad world, isn’t it!” She lifted up my hand and moved it softly backwards and forwards against her lips.  Then, suddenly jumping up, she went into the next room, and came back with my hat and stick.

“Here are your dear things,” she said; “and I shall see you tomorrow evening at Tommy’s.  I shan’t leave him a note—­somebody might open it; I shall just let you go and find him yourself.  Oh, I should love to be there when he realizes who it is.”

“I know just what he’ll do,” I said.  “He’ll stare at me for a minute; then he’ll say quite quietly, ‘Well, I’m damned,’ and go and pour himself out a whisky.”

She laughed gaily.  “Yes, yes,” she said.  “That’s exactly what will happen.”  Then with a little change in her voice she added:  “And you will be careful, won’t you, Neil?  I know you’re quite safe; no one can possibly recognize you; but I’m frightened all the same—­horribly frightened.  Isn’t it silly of me?”