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she said was, “I thought you were on the move, darling,” lowering her gaze now to fiddle with the gold watch-bracelet that Shaw had given her some while before. She knew her security record was absolutely O.K., Grade A, first-class, and all the rest of it, but she made a point of refraining from asking questions. In general it was safe enough for Shaw to talk to her, and he knew it, and did sometimes ask her for ideas, but he always had to do the volunteering; and in a restaurant you obviously had to stick to the cover-story anyway.
    He said, “I’m leaving the Service, Debbie.”
    He saw the query in her eyes—she couldn’t help that; it wasn’t in the least what she had been expecting, and he answered the unspoken plea. He shook his head slightly, his eyes wary. He said, “The Navy—the whole show. I’m going on the retired list.”
    She didn’t know whether or not to believe him. Joy and relief showed for an instant, before the automatic thought came to her: There’s more behind this! They wouldn’t be retiring him, even with the Golden Bowler, chucking a useful man on the shelf, not unless it was at his own request, and somehow she didn’t think it would be. But she made herself smile at him, and she said:
    “Oh, goody! Now you’ll have to let me get you that high-level job with E.P.C., Esmonde.”
    He shook his head. “I’ve got a job already.”
    “Quick work!” She lifted an eyebrow. That little gesture, so wonderfully attractive, was like a knife in the heart to Shaw, sent the most extraordinary feelings through his whole body. He grinned at her, mouth tight and drawn as though it resented being forced into a grin.
    “I suppose it is,” he said. “But it’s a case of a job for the boys, I’m afraid. I’m an Admiralty civilian—Inspector of Establishments in Armament Supply.”
    “Which is?” she queried.
    Briefly he told her. He added that his first routine inspection was to be of the Gibraltar depot. Shaw was a good agent, and he convinced people. Debonnair was almost convinced after a while; it sounded genuine enough, but there was one test which couldn’t fail, and it was a test no one but she herself could make. Because of it she said no more, but just waited for him to say something. While she waited she studied him obliquely, saw the hurt that he couldn’t keep out of his eyes as he talked on, almost aimlessly, covering up what he was leaving unsaid. That hurt was there because he wasn’t sure that she would understand . . . understand the way his mind worked. But she did; she thought, if he tells me it’s all right for us to get married now I’ll know he really is retiring. If he doesn’t—then all this is hooey, and he’s off, as I suspected, on another job. Because he’s too goddam decent to make this an excuse for getting me to change my mind and say yes; it would be under false pretences, and he’d never do that to me even for the outfit, even for England. Shaw, she knew, was the kind of man who put homely things first, and believed that national decency, which he wouldn’t confuse with some narrow concept of morality— he wasn’t the kind of man, for instance, to take up silly postures about people sleeping together if they felt so inclined —was firmly based on the decent feelings of the ordinary people who made up the nation. A queer sort of agent—yes, maybe; but she hadn’t noticed that he was the less thought of because of it.
    When he didn’t say anything she knew—and, of course, she understood. Her hand stole under the table to squeeze his. For an instant their thighs touched; emotion showed momentarily in Shaw’s face. His quick thoughts had been running on bitterly behind the gay chatter from the other tables, the inconsequential rubbish, the laughter aroused by shared jokes, the lights, the hovering attentions of the waiters, the olive hand which deferentially plied the half-forgotten carafe.
    Shaw took up his glass, lifted it, frowning as the