That stung him; there was a sharp intake of breath.

“Yes. Well, no doubt you were persuasive when you put him up to it. You were persuasive with me. I’ll say this for you, Gini, you put on a good act.”

“You bastard. You lying, sanctimonious bastard. I—”

She stopped. She was listening to the dial tone. At the second adjective McGuire had hung up.

Gini replaced the receiver. She was trembling from head to foot. It could not be true, she told herself. Pascal would never deceive her like that.

Then, the next second, she knew it could be true. She could remember the afternoon he had set off for his private meeting with Max. She could remember his quiet elation when he returned, and the negligent way in which he had said that it had been a good meeting, but nothing was finalized yet. He and Max had been circumspect. Her terms had finally been met four days later, Pascal’s signed and sealed two days after that. She could not decide which she minded more, the fact that Pascal could, out of love, misinterpret her own wishes so disastrously, that he could lie and then continue to lie for more than six months—or the fact that, as Rowland McGuire had been quick to point out, she had overestimated her own worth.

Her own abilities, her experience, her years of fighting to get just such an assignment, had counted for nothing. She’d been sent out there as Pascal’s girl, as a price paid with reluctance to secure his services. She felt the most acute and painful humiliation. How many other people were privy to this? Had they all known, the other reporters, the editors in features and news, the assistants, the secretaries? Had they all been as scornful as McGuire? Had they all been gossiping, and laughing behind her back?

Her first impulse was to reach for the telephone, to call Pascal, demand the truth. But as she reached for the machine, humiliation and shame receded and anger flooded back. She felt rage against Max, bland, amusing Max, who had said one thing and thought another. She felt the most bitter rage against Rowland McGuire, who jumped to the wrong conclusions, put two and two together and made six, who had been prejudiced against her, she now saw, from the very beginning, and who had just addressed her with such contempt.

He might think she was just going to drop this story, crawl meekly back to London and hide her head: well, he was wrong. Every major lead on this story with the exception of Mitchell had come from her. It was she who had persuaded Mitchell to talk, she who had won Fricke’s confidence, and she who had the Paris lead now. She thought of Erica van der Leyden that afternoon—the way in which Anneke’s mother had clasped her hands. That female exchange was far greater validation than any Rowland McGuire could provide; she had no intention of stopping now. Think, act, move, she said to herself. A quick future image of McGuire sprang into her mind. She saw him contrite; she saw him take back everything he had just said. But this little glimpse of a possible future disturbed her, and she pushed it aside at once. She had spent too much of her past life seeking her father’s approval; she did not intend seeking McGuire’s.