I would have given a great deal to see what he was giving Ivor to take to Maxine, and I was half tempted to lift myself up and peep at the two from behind the lounge, but I could tell from their voices that they were standing quite near, and it would have been too dangerous.  The Foreign Secretary, who is rather a nervous man, and fastidious about a woman’s looks, never could bear me:  and I believe he would have thought it almost as justifiable as drowning an ugly kitten, to choke me if he knew I’d overheard his secrets.

However, Ivor’s next words gave me some inkling of what I wished to know.  “It’s importance evidently doesn’t consist in bulk,” he said lightly.  “I can easily carry the case in my breast pocket.”

“Pray put it there at once, and guard it as you would guard the life and honour of a woman,” said the Foreign Secretary solemnly.  “Now, I, must go and look for my wife.  It’s better that you and I shouldn’t be seen together.  One never knows who may have got in among the guests at a crush like this.  I will go out at one door, and when you’ve waited for a few minutes, you can go, by way of another.”

A moment later there was silence in the room, and I knew that Ivor was alone.  What if I spoke, and startled him?  All that is impish in me longed to see how his face would look; but there was too much at stake.  Not only would I hate to have him scorn me for an eavesdropper, but I had already built up a great plan for the use I could make of what I had overheard.

CHAPTER III

LISA MAKES MISCHIEF

When Ivor was safely out of the room, my first thought was to escape from behind the lounge, and get upstairs to my own quarters.  But just as I had sat up, very cramped and wretched, with one foot and one arm asleep, Lord Mountstuart came in again, and down I had to duck.

He had brought a friend, who was as mad about old books and first editions, as he; a stuffy, elderly thing, who had never seen Lord Mountstuart’s treasures before.  As both were perfectly daft on the subject, they must have kept me lying there an hour, while they fussed about from one glass-protected book-case to another, murmuring admiration of Caxtons, or discussing the value of a Mazarin Bible, with their noses in a lot of old volumes which ought to have been eaten up by moths long ago.  As for me, I should have been delighted to set fire to the whole lot.

At last Lord Mountstuart (whom I’ve nicknamed “Stewey”) remembered that there was a ball going on, and that he was the host.  So he and the other duffer pottered away, leaving the coast clear and the door wide open.  It was just my luck (which is always bad and always has been) that a pair of flirting idiots, for whom the conservatory, or our “den,” or the stairs, wasn’t secluded enough, must needs be prying about and spy that open door before I had conquered my cramps and got up from behind the sofa.