Following the press conference, there was a gala dinner, then a tour of the city the next day in the company of the mayor, in which Sam and Irene (accompanied by George Morrow) appear to have met at least half the civil servants in the entire province. There was a luncheon with the Sydney Ladies Auxiliary, a military ball given by the Australian Flying Corps, a private lunch at the new Government House in Canberra with Lord Stonehaven, the governor-general of Australia, followed by a formal dinner with the prime minister and senior members of government, along with their wives. Various additional public appearances filled in the gaps of this bruising schedule.

To Irene it all passed in a blur, or rather a jumble. She felt like a doll, dressed up—Morrow had ordered an entire wardrobe for her—and paraded about at event after event, saying the same things to an endless receiving line of people, giving variants of the same speech, more or less, she had delivered to the panjandrums of Honolulu. What she did not experience was time to herself. Each day, Morrow left her at her hotel suite at midnight and rapped on her door at half past seven, so that she had neither time nor energy to do anything else except stumble to bed and sleep deeply, dreamlessly, for the hours allotted. Not only was she never left alone with Sam, they had no opportunity to arrange a private meeting. It was Morrow, Morrow, Morrow, all day long.

On their fifth night in Australia, Irene rang up the switchboard and asked to be connected to Sam, but the operator told her she was unable to put through any calls to that suite without permission. Irene explained that this was Miss Foster, room 205. The operator apologized and said it was still impossible. The next morning, when Morrow’s attention was momentarily distracted, Irene told Sam. “I tried the same thing,” he said. “With the same result. I’d have marched right down the hall to see you, but Morrow’s got guards posted outside my door and yours.”

“That’s for protection from the public,” said Irene.

“Sure it is,” said Sam.

When Morrow returned to the breakfast table a moment later, Sam said, “What gives with the telephone lines? I can’t get a call in to Irene.”

“Of course not,” said Morrow. “Because any operator on that switchboard could listen in to your conversation, and every word would appear verbatim in the next morning’s papers.”

“Baloney,” said Irene.

Morrow shrugged. “An operator could earn a year’s pay selling that story.”

“Couldn’t you sue the newspaper?”

“Maybe. But the story’d be out by then.” Morrow reached for his coffee. “And I don’t think either of you would appreciate your private intercourse being made public.”

“That’s an interesting choice of words,” said Sam.