The owner himself served us. Wild mushroom soup and roasted duck breast with apples, washed down with a couple of bottles of Merlot Bianco-from his cousin’s vineyard, he was proud to tell us. It beat dining in London, with all the rationing restrictions, even though Diana was still dressed as a nun.

“Why don’t you change?” I asked as our host cleared the dishes and Philby fired up his pipe. “Do you need clothes?”

“Kim,” Diana said. “Didn’t you tell him?”

“Tell me what?” I wanted to know.

“The mission isn’t over,” she said, lowering her voice. “I needed to report something in person, so I asked to come out. I’ll go back as soon as I can.”

“I will be the one to make that decision, my dear,” Philby said in his best professorial tone. “That’s why I didn’t tell Boyle. I’m not sure myself if you should go back. First, I need to hear what was so important, and how you came to learn of it. The Germans are great ones for playing games, and it could be false intelligence designed to draw out an agent, forcing you to take the sort of intemperate action you did.”

“This is not the sort of intelligence they would plant,” Diana said. “And I am not intemperate.” She drank her wine and set the glass down hard, punctuating her statement.

“Very well,” Philby said, shrugging his acceptance. “We can discuss the matter later, in private.”

“No,” Diana said. “This is not something to be hidden away and kept secret. Billy does work for General Eisenhower, after all.” She made it sound like Philby was an idiot, not her spymaster boss.

“And I am in the business of managing secrets,” Philby said. “Not broadcasting them before their usefulness can be determined.”

“I saw a report from the bishop of Berlin, Konrad von Preysing,” Diana said, ignoring Philby, who refilled his wine glass and eyed her with faint amusement, as if she were a precocious child on the verge of misbehavior. “It was sent directly to the pope, and one of his secretaries typed a copy…”