Martin Hillyard lied without compunction.
"Then will you take me into the garden?"
He found a couple of chairs in a corner of the terrace out of the hearing of the rest.
"We shall be quiet here," he said. He hoped that she would disclose the difficulty which had risen between herself and Harry, and seek his counsel as Harry's friend. It might be one of the little trifling discords which love magnifies until they blot out the skies and drape the earth in temporary mourning. But Joan began at once nervously upon a different topic.
"You made a charge against Mario Escobar the other day. I did not believe it. But you spoke the truth. I know that now."
She stopped and gazed woefully in front of her. Then she hurried on.
"I can prove it. He demands news of your movements in the Mediterranean. If it is necessary I must come forward publicly and prove it. It will be horrible, but of course I will."
Martin looked at her quickly. She kept her eyes averted from him. Her fingers plucked nervously at her dress. There was an aspect of shame in her attitude.
"It will not be necessary, Joan," he answered. "I have quite enough evidence already to put him away until the end of the war."
Joan turned to him with quivering lips.