"Oh, it was easy enough. I asked Lord Lammersfield to bring him here one day. You know what George is like; he would never refuse to do anything a Cabinet Minister suggested. Of course he had no idea who I was until he arrived."
"It must have been quite a pleasant surprise for him," I said grimly.
"Did he recognize you at once?"
Joyce shook her head. "He had only seen me at the trial, and I had my hair down then. Besides, two years make a lot of difference."
"They've made a lot of difference in you," I said. "They've turned you from a pretty child into a beautiful woman."
With a little low, contented laugh Joyce again laid her head on my shoulder. "I think," she said, "that that's the only one of George's opinions I'd like you to share."
There was a moment's silence. Then I gently twisted one of her loose curls round my finger.
"My poor Joyce," I said, "you seem to have been wading in some remarkably unpleasant waters for my sake."
She shivered slightly. "Oh, it was hateful in a way, but I didn't care. I knew George was hiding something that might help to get you out of prison, and what did my feelings matter compared with that! Besides—" she smiled mockingly—"for all his cleverness and his wickedness George is a fool—just the usual vain fool that most men are about women. It's been easy enough to manage him."
"He knows who you are now, of course?" I said.
She nodded. "I told him. He would have been almost certain to find out, and then he would probably have been suspicious. As it is he thinks our meeting was just pure chance."