The Powers and Maxine

								

hate her--and all beautiful girls, who spoil the lives of women like
me."
A shivering fit shook me from head to feet, as I guessed that the time
must be coming for Number 13. They were together, perhaps. What if, in
spite of all, Ivor should tell Di how he loved her, and they should be
engaged? At that thought, I tried to bring on a heart attack, and die;
for at least it would chill their happiness if, when Lady Mountstuart's
ball was over, I should be found lying white and dead, like Elaine on
her barge. I was holding my breath, with my hand pressed over my heart
to feel how it was beating, when the door opened suddenly, and I heard a
voice speaking.

CHAPTER II

LISA LISTENS
Someone turned up the light. "I'll leave you together," said Lord
Mountstuart; and the door was closed.
"What could that mean?" I wondered. I had supposed the two men had come
in alone, but there must have been a third person. Who could it be? Had
Lord Mountstuart been arranging a tête-à-tête between Di and Ivor
Dundas?
The thought was like a hand on my throat, choking my life out. I must
hear what they had to say to each other.
Without stopping to think more, I rolled over and let myself sink down
into the narrow space between the low couch and the wall, sharply
pulling the clinging folds of my chiffon dress after me. Then I lay
still, my blood pounding in my temples and ears, and in my nostrils a
faint, musty smell from the Oriental stuff that covered the lounge.
I could see nothing from where I lay, except the side of the couch, the
wall, and a bit of the ceiling with the gargoyley cornice which Di had
mentioned when she wanted to seem indifferent to the subject of our
conversation. But I was listening with all my might for what was to
come.
"Better lock the door, if you please, Dundas," said a voice, which gave
me a shock of surprise, though I knew it well.
Instead of Di, it was the Foreign Secretary who spoke.
"We won't run the risk of interruptions," he went on, with that slow,
clear enunciation of his which most Oxford men have, and keep all their
lives, especially men of the college that was his--Balliol. "I told
Mountstuart that I wanted a private chat with you. Beyond that, he knows
nothing, nor does anyone else except myself. You understand that this
conversation of ours, whether anything comes of it or not, is entirely
confidential. I have a proposal to make. You'll agree to it or not, as
you choose. But if you don't agree, forget it, with everything I may
have said."
"My services and my memory are both at your disposal," answered Ivor, in
such a gay, happy voice that something told me he had already talked
with Diana--and that in spite of me she had not snubbed him. "I am
honoured--I won't say flattered, for I'm too much in earnest--that you
should place any confidence in me."
I lay there behind the lounge and sneered at this speech of his. Of