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a certain Charaguayan gentleman on the aircraft to whom your Mr. Fitzgerald took exception.’ Hester drew in a deep breath, and flicked her fiery hair behind her shoulders. ‘So,’ she said, ‘you met Don Ramón. James told me he’d returned, but he didn’t tell me you’d already made his acquaintance. Or should I say, knowing him,’ she avoided my eyes in the mirror, ‘he made yours?’
    ‘You’ve met him, have you?'
    ‘A few times. Didn’t he mention me?’
    ‘I don’t think I asked him,’ I replied. ‘I asked if he knew your parents.’
    ‘But he didn’t think it worthwhile to mention me?’ She laughed angrily. I studied her reflection. She seemed as put out as James Fitzgerald at my chance meeting with Don Ramón, though she expressed herself in quite a different manner.
    ‘Don’t you like him?’ I asked.
    She shrugged. ‘I really haven’t given my opinion a thought. He doesn’t remember I exist. The same applies to me. I don’t know he exists.'
    ‘He’s kind, though,’ I said.
    She laughed scornfully, ‘But compare him to James.'
    ‘I am doing,’ I said drily.
    Hester laughed.
    ‘You’ve taken a dislike to James,’ she wagged her finger, half reproving, half condescending.
    ‘Or he has to me,’ I replied.
    She didn’t deny it. ‘People don’t realise how very kind James is.’
    ‘That I can well understand.'
    She laughed mischievously. ‘Simply because he doesn’t wear his heart on his sleeve?’
    I was tempted to ask if the Head of Chancery had, in fact, got a heart to wear. But I realised it was no way to talk to Hester Mallenport about her father’s deputy, so I kept my mouth shut.
    ‘Mother in her romantic moments has a theory,' Hester rested her elbows on the dressing-table and cupped her chin in her hands, ‘that James’ heart is rather like his precious Chancery.’
    In spite of myself I smiled at the aptness of Mrs. Mallenport’s theory. ‘Full of important secrets,’ I said, ‘and always kept tightly locked.’
    ‘Exactly,’ Hester replied.
    ‘And with only one master key,’ I added.
    ‘My dear mother’s idea is that only one girl will ever hold that key. But when she does, it will be for ever. She reckons that girl is Eve Trent.' Hester paused, smiling to herself. ‘But believe me, I know better.’
    She got up then and said she’d leave me in peace to eat my supper and get an early night.
    ‘If you really must go to the Embassy tomorrow, how about us meeting for lunch afterwards? There’s a park in front of the Embassy square, Central Park West, and there’s a cafe in the centre. Walk straight down from the Embassy square and turn left. You won’t be able to miss it.’
    We settled on twelve-thirty. James, she reckoned, would have shown me the ropes by then. I wondered if she thought he might also buy the new girl some lunch. In which case there was no doubt whatsoever that she would be disappointed.
    Despite my tiredness I took a long time to get to sleep that night. I kept turning over the events of the day, the people I’d met and the people I’d yet to meet, and nervously I suppose anticipating my session with Mr. Fitzgerald tomorrow. I wondered if he was deliberately dragging me in on a Sunday when only a skeleton staff worked, as a punishment. To show who was master, as it were. And just before I fell asleep I wondered about Mrs. Mallenport’s strangely romantic theory about the key to the young Head of Chancery’s heart. The words of an old song came into my mind. As far as I was concerned whoever held that key could put it in a box, tie it up in ribbon, drop it in the deep blue sea.
     

CHAPTER IV
    I slept through my first dawn. Chico roused me with a glass of iced orange juice at seven o’clock saying rather reproachfully that the senorita had missed ' Madruga'. He pulled back the curtains flooding the room with full bright daylight. Now from my balcony I could see the terraced city with its terracotta roofs, delicate ornate spires,