“The only party after the opening,” he said, “should be a wake, with those two as the guests of honor.”
“I don’t think Simon agrees with you,” Patricia said. “He’s discovered that there are things in Iris’s favor which you never mentioned in your description.”
Simon reached for her glass and finished her drink for her.
“You’re very unfair to the wench,” he said. “If it’s a crime to be fascinated by me, what are you doing here?”
He produced folding money and handed it to a hopeful waiter.
“Buy Mr Keane another drink,” he said. “And a taxi afterwards, if he needs it.” He stood up. “I’m sorry we have to rush off, but I have to buy Pat some dinner. She doesn’t talk back so much with her mouth full.”
Mr Keane nodded broodingly.
“Good night,” he said. “I shall see thee — at Philippi.”
They made their escape, Simon hoped, before Mr Keane was reminded that the Pump Room was also in the business of serving food.
The encounter was typical of many similar incidents in the Saint’s life — coincidental, casual, and apparently pointless, and yet destined to lead into unsuspected complications. Adventure, for him, moved in a mysterious way. Nothing ever seemed to happen to him that was completely unimportant, or that led nowhere. He had come to accept it as part of an inscrutable fate, like the people who are known to insurance companies as “accident prone”: regardless of whether he took the initiative or not, something was always happening to him. He seldom thought about it much anymore, except that it may have subconsciously contributed to a pleasantly persistent euphoria, an almost imperceptible but continuous excitement which made the colors of his world just a little brighter than anyone else’s.