I lit her cigarette and talked to her for her soul's good.
"As I say, my law's pretty rusty," I told her in conclusion, "but you may take it as quite certain that the penalty for abduction is rather severe."
"Brutally," Joyce assented with unabated cheerfulness. "But you've got to catch your criminal before you can imprison him."
"Or her."
"And you can't catch without evidence."
I wandered round the room in search of two cushions. I found only one, but women do not need cushions to the same extent as men.
"That's the most banal remark I've ever heard from you," I told her. "There never was a criminal yet that didn't think he'd left no traces, never one that didn't think he was equal to the strain of sitting waiting to be arrested. They all end in the same way, get frightened or become reckless——"
"Which am I?"
"Neither as yet. You'll become reckless, because I don't think you know what fear means."
"Reckless! Me reckless! If I have a glass roof put to the editorial room of the New Militant, will you climb up and see my moderating influence at work? If it hadn't been for me, we should have been prosecuted over the first number."