“Oh, no doubt of that,” the woman said. “First-rate. And always good for a drunken escapade, whenever one’s in need of those things.”

“Charming fellow, if you like his particular brand of charm.”

“What if you don’t?” Iris asked.

“Then you’ll hate him,” said the woman. “Oh, I say. Speak of the very devil.”

Iris swiveled her head just in time to see him walking through the doorway, the man named Burgess, holding a cigarette and a highball brimming with gin in his right hand and a champagne coupe in the left hand. He made straight for the slight gap between Sasha and Iris and slid himself inside it.

“This is for you, Mrs. Digby,” he said solemnly, handing her the champagne.

“Oh! Thank you.”

“Guy Burgess. Foreign Office. Now, you mustn’t hold it against me, but I suspect I see more of your husband than you do.”

“Not true,” Sasha said. “Though not entirely false, either.”

“All matters of state, I assure you. You do like champagne, Mrs. Digby?”

“Very much.”

“Then you won’t mind if I steal away the old man for just a moment? Matters of state, you see.”

“Not at all,” Iris said, and it wasn’t entirely a lie.

AFTER A MOMENT OR two of trivial conversation, the blond woman—her name was Fischer, Nedda Fischer—invented some excuse and left Iris and Philip to each other. Iris smiled. Philip smiled back. The effect was ever so slightly sinister, because Philip had encountered some terrible calamity during the war—exactly what, nobody could agree, and Philip himself wasn’t going to talk about it—that had left the right side of his face scarred and pitted and not quite as mobile as the left side. Also, most of the ear was missing.