"No, you're not a bit late, Mr. Nordsten. As a matter of fact I was working until twenty minutes ago. If you had come earlier I should have been quite embarrassed."
He introduced his niece, a dark slender girl with a quiet and rather aloof beauty which would have been chilling if it had not been relieved by the friendly humour of her brown eyes. About her, Simon admitted, there might certainly have been things to attract the attention of a modern buccaneer.
"Carmen has been assisting me. She has a very good degree from Columbia."
He made no other unprompted reference to his researches, and Simon recognized him as the modern type of scientist whose carefully cultivated pose of matter-of-fact worldliness is just as fashionable an affectation as the mystical and bearded eccentricity of his predecessors used to be. Dr. Sardon talked about politics, about his golf handicap and about the art of Otto Soglow. He was an entertaining and effective conversationalist but he might never have heard of such a thing as biology until towards the close of dinner Ivar Nordsten skilfully turned a discussion of gardening to the subject of insect pests.
"Although, of course," he said, "you would not call them that."
It was strange to see the dark glow that came into Sardon's eyes.
"As a popular term," he said in his deep vibrant voice, "I suppose it is too well established for me to change it. But it would be much more reasonable for the insects to talk about human pests."
He turned to Simon.
"I expect Mr. Nordsten has already warned you about the — bee in my bonnet," he said; but he used the phrase without smiling. "Do you by any chance know anything about the subject?"
"I had a flea once," said the Saint reminiscently. "I called him Goebbels. But he left me."