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I thought I saw, as I descended, a variety of expressions cross his face. At first I thought he was pleased at my punctuality and appearance—perhaps even a little more than pleased. The light in the hall gave his face a delusory expression of tenderness. Close to, I realised the familiar tautness was back round his mouth and jaw and that his eyes were far from tender. That he was regarding my dress not only as if he disliked it but as if I had a personal knowledge that his reaction would be thus. And that I had worn it just to annoy him.

We exchanged the briefest of good evenings. He held out his hand for my cloak, then he said in a quiet but deadly voice carefully pitched so that Chico could not hear, ‘I’ll wait here for you while you go up and change. That dress is not suitable for the reception.’

I had thought earlier that day that I could not be more humiliated by James Fitzgerald than to be escorted by him unwilling and unwanted to this soiree. Now I realised how mistaken I had been.

‘What’s wrong with it?’ I demanded.

‘It’s too low cut and your arms are uncovered.’

I rubbed my offending arms miserably. ‘You liked Hester’s!’

‘That’s quite different. That was for Washington. Please don’t delay us further by arguing. Go upstairs and put on a dress with a high neck and sleeves.’

‘I haven’t got one. I’m only here for a short time …' my voice trailed away.

‘Borrow one of Hester’s, then,’ he said with masculine casualness.

‘She’s much taller than I am!’

He let out an exasperated exclamation in a Charaguayan patois that would, I am sure, have done credit to Don Ramón if I could have understood it, grasped me by the wrist, and before Chico had time to open the door, threw it back himself and bundled me outside.

He snapped some address to the driver and we were off at speed. I thought Mr. Fitzgerald had given up the unequal struggle in this alien territory of feminine fashion, but not so. The limousine sped us swiftly to the centre of the city, now gaily waking to its night life. The car eased its way to the brightly lit shopping centre till it came to a halt outside a parade of small exclusive shops, with windows discreetly lit and dressed in beautiful but expensive simplicity. Humiliated, I saw that the central one was a French gown establishment, Maison Odette, in front of which a uniformed commissionaire marched up and down waving away the shoeshine boys who tried to ply their trade amongst the window-shoppers.

He rushed to open the door and bowed us out. He was so busy bowing low to Mr. Fitzgerald that the smallest of the shoeshine boys was able to creep smartly behind him along the pavement and reach the salon door before him. With an effort, because he was thin and undersized, he threw it wide, bowing low in wicked imitation of the commissionaire, and then smiling up at me seraphically,

‘Buenas noches
,
senorita
.’

I recognised the small squealing boy Morag had had by the ear in the park on Sunday.

‘Buenas noches
, Petiso,’ I smiled back, relieved to see a smiling familiar face. I felt in my evening bag for a coin. I could only find a fifty-sucre piece which was inordinately large, but I didn't care. I slipped it into Petiso’s hand.

‘You’ll have earned yourself a friend for life with that,’ Mr. Fitzgerald said drily, easing me through the salon doorway with a purposeful hand.

‘I could do with one,’ I whispered, but he heard.

‘The trouble with you,' he replied grittily, ‘is you don’t recognise them when you see them.’

Then we were in the centre of the thick-carpeted salon. A stout Charaguayan lady, elegantly dressed and coiffured, appeared from behind oyster satin curtains, and the most distasteful part of the evening began.

*

To begin with, fairly naturally, she assumed I was James Fitzgerald’s wife. In the polite extravagant manner of Charaguayans, and in a mixture of Spanish, English and French, she extolled the
senora
’s beautiful face and figure. And the hair! She threw up her hands. Of such a colour and fineness—she compared it to her own black shining pompadour, to the latter’s disparagement.

With great courtesy, and greater firmness, Mr. Fitzgerald cut her short. In rapid Spanish he explained that a dress was required for a reception, to wear immediately—long sleeves, high neckline, colour immaterial.

The black-haired lady smiled. She knew exactly,
exactement, exactemente
what was required. ‘And the size for the
senora
?’

James Fitzgerald frowned as if that also were immaterial. ‘Size, Madeleine?’ He turned to me.

‘Ten,' I replied shortly, seething inwardly.

‘Quickly,
por favor,'
Mr. Fitzgerald added.

The Charaguayan lady disappeared behind the oyster satin curtains and returned with two dresses over her arm. She held them up for his inspection. One was in brown, one was in black. The smart Charaguayan ladies, I’d noticed, favoured dark colours. Neither dress was my cup of tea, but meekly I followed Madame Odette into a comfortable changing room, and put on the most innocuous, the brown. In it I looked like the new English governess, but at least it fitted.

The
senor
must see me in it immediately. He would be delighted, proud,
admiroso.
Madame ushered me out into the salon. James Fitzgerald was none of those things. He simply gave me one look, nodded, said to Madame Odette, ‘Right, that’ll do. She can keep it on. Pack her other dress, I’ll have it picked up tomorrow.’

He brought out a cheque book and wrote out one for the figure Madame discreetly handed him on a piece of paper, her head modestly averted.

‘I can’t let you pay for it!’ I said indignantly.

‘Don’t worry, I won’t! You’ll be due a clothing allowance for tropical service. I’ll see this is deducted from it.'

He opened the door for me and swept me into the car. Petiso was on the kerb waving like mad. I smiled and waved back, then I looked at the clock on the dashboard. Though it felt like as many hours, the whole humiliating operation had taken only twenty minutes. But we would be fifteen minutes past the
hora inglesa
.

Surprisingly, Mr. Fitzgerald did not berate me on that score as the car moved at all possible speed to the Palacio Cultural. I opened my bag and glanced surreptitiously at my ruined and now wrong-coloured make-up in my compact mirror. I felt Mr. Fitzgerald staring at me with the exasperation of the all-male man for such feminine frivolities. I ran a comb through my hair, dabbed some powder on my face, blotted out a little of the blue eyeshadow.

After a moment he said stiffly, 'I thought you looked very nice as you were.’ But whether that really meant what the words said, or simply, please stop fussing, I didn’t know. Oddly enough, though, that small remark lifted my sunken spirits to quite disproportionate heights.

I climbed the seemingly endless grey marble steps up from the car to the portals of the Palacio Cultural almost smiling.

Half way up, I said diffidently, ‘I’m sorry.'

‘That’s all right. I should have warned you. Not really my department, though.' He gave me a funny smile, apologetic almost.

I could see that he had expected Hester to brief me, and I knew it had been a genuine omission on her part.

I climbed half a dozen more stairs. ‘We’ll be late, though.’

He shrugged. ‘Knowing the Charaguayans, they’ll probably warm even more to us.'

We reached the top, were ushered under the portals by uniformed flunkeys, announced and presented to the Ministro and his wife.

It appeared that Mr. Fitzgerald was right. All were surprised at our lateness but gently smiling. There were some quips and cracks about
hora inglesa.

But it was Don Ramón who unwittingly made the only quip that hurt. He came over almost immediately after we had been presented, and kissed my hand. He complimented me on my appearance. ‘Ah,’ he exclaimed, laughing, ‘so at last the so punctual British have arrived a trifle late! The
senorita
,’ he turned to James Fitzgerald, ‘informs me that it is the English woman’s privilege. And they are,’ he added admiringly, ‘creatures of great spirit. I knew when I told you of
hora inglesa
last Sunday,
senorita
, that already you had a mischievous desire to flout that convention.’

I didn’t get the time to make Don Ramón an adequate reply. Mr. Fitzgerald took me away to talk to the ladies. I didn’t dare to look at the expression on his face.

Mrs. Mallenport and Hester returned on Sunday afternoon. Both were in excellent spirits, Mrs. Mallenport from having seen her beloved H.E. again. Hester from the mile-long queue of partners that had waited to dance with her. James Fitzgerald, the ever-dutiful, or ever- devoted, I didn’t know which, had met them at the airport. He would not stay for tea at the Residence, though Mrs. Mallenport had clearly invited him. He was off, as I could see Hester suspected, to snatch an hour or two with Eve.

‘Such good news of Eve,’ said Mrs. Mallenport, pouring out tea from the trolley on the terrace. ‘The doctors are very pleased with her. The fracture is mending beautifully. She’s out on the balcony every day— getting quite a sun-tan, James tells me.’

Mrs. Mallenport did not tell me if Mr. Fitzgerald had mentioned our unfortunate episode of last night—a frigid affair it had turned out to be. Apart from a few stately perambulations round the floor with officials of the Ministry of Culture, I had had one dance with James Fitzgerald, one with Don Ramon. The difference had been the contrast between Quicha’s icy altitude and its warm equatorial sun. James Fitzgerald had quickly set that sun. He had taken me back to the Residence immediately after my dance with Don Ramón.

But if Mrs. Mallenport didn’t tell me what Mr. Fitzgerald had said about last night, she did, in the course of the next two days, and in her tactful maternal way, mention what an excellent seamstress Bianca, Chico’s wife, was, how it would be such a pity not to get her to run me up a few dresses, while I was here. The money would help Bianca. Mrs. Mallenport had seen some pretty material. She would purchase it for me if I so wished, the next time she was in the shopping centre. Because I, dear girl, always seemed to have my nose to the grindstone.

I didn’t, however, have my nose to the grindstone that Wednesday. It was the evening of the Morag/Hester fund-raising expedition to the Hacienda del Ortega, where we were to have a barbecue supper followed by
danzas campestres.
Hester, who had been handling the tickets, told me at breakfast that morning that all had been sold.

‘Did Don Ramón buy one?’ I asked casually.

She shook her head. ‘He tried to, but I told him there were none left.’

‘Why?’

She shrugged, frowned, tossed her shimmering hair behind her shoulders and said, as if in apology I think to me, ‘That was a while ago. I didn’t know then how . . Then with relief, ‘That’s the Land Rover! Better get a move on. James won’t let anyone off early, if they don’t arrive early.'

He wouldn’t either. Mr. Fitzgerald was actually allowing the staff to leave at four-thirty instead of five- thirty, providing they arrived for duty at seven-thirty instead of eight. As he had told me, rules were carefully observed, yet despite that the Embassy was as relaxed and happy as a good family. At least it would be when Eve returned.

I wanted to ask Hester if the Head of Chancery himself was to accompany us, but I didn’t want to waste time in finding out what was of really no interest anyway. I was outside before Chico opened the door, hauled aboard the Land Rover by Ashford Aid, and I had my confidential cabinet open and my first letter typed before the eight o’clock carillon sounded over the sweet clear air of Quicha.

No one stopped for lunch, except Mr. Green. He put his head round my door at one o’clock. ‘I’m off for a lonely bite lest anyone wants me,' he announced, beaming. ‘I’m D.O., as I won’t be getting all the lovely grub you lot are having tonight.’

That meant Mr. Fitzgerald would be free to come. But would he want to? Would he prefer, I wondered, at the back of my mind, as I filed and typed and minuted that afternoon, to support Hester’s effort for the shoeshine boys? Or would he rather while away an evening cosily with Eve in her room with a view? I decided Hester would win on duty points. I got a melancholy pleasure in seeing, when we all assembled, that I was right.

It seemed ironic, I thought, as the ticket holders foregathered outside the Embassy just by the statue of the Conquistador and his bride, that Don Ramón himself should be excluded. A fleet of taxis had been laid on by Morag, and with masterly authority, quite at variance with her diminutive stature, she immediately got down to the task of getting everyone in.

Hester stood on the pavement. She was wearing a short pink dress which showed off her lovely long legs. She carried a wide-brimmed straw hat with a matching ribbon.

‘Where is he?’ she asked, as I appeared in the Embassy doorway.

‘Mr. Fitzgerald? He’s just gone into the Duty Office to check with Mr. Green.’

‘On expeditions,’ Hester said testily, ‘we’re all on Christian name terms. Even you can call him James.’

‘Whom can she so call?’ an amused, drawling voice behind us enquired.

‘Oh, there you are, darling.' Hester spun round, colouring the pretty shade of her dress. ‘Why, you, of course, James.’ Deliberately, she stood on tiptoe and just managed to place a quick kiss of greeting on his chin.

For the first time ever, I actually saw the young Head of Chancery blush.

Somehow or other, but by no doing of mine, we were swept into the last taxi together. Morag and Alex Ashford had to see everyone settled, so technically did Hester. Naturally Mr. Fitzgerald stayed close at her side. But I was a somewhat extraneous addition. Yet, in his damnably disconcerting way of being inhumanly human, James Fitzgerald set himself out to be kind.