Simon Templar gazed at him levelly. The stillness had left him bubbling away before a spring of deep inward laughter that didn’t stir a muscle of his chest. The same laughter seeped into the depths of his eyes, like the shift of something stirring far down in a blue mountain lake, without changing a facet of the surface.
He felt quite unreasonably happy. But to the Saint there was always a reckless delight like no other mirth in the world when the wolves split the first stitch of the first tiny seam of their well-tailored sheepskins, and he knew that the cards were coming on to the table and the fight was going to be on. All the sparring and exploring and the rubber stilettos were great fun in their time, but they were only shadows until those moments of reality touched them like magic wands putting life into a picture...
“I’ll see you tonight, then,” he said.
“With something definite?”
“With something definite.”
The other’s hopeful eyes searched his face, as though they were seeking an innuendo that could have been confirmed there, and yet that hadn’t been hinted by the minutest inflection of a single syllable.
“I hope we shall both be pleased about it,” said the visitor at last, wistfully, and stood up. He bowed obsequiously to the girl. “It’s been a pleasure, Miss Morland.” He put out his hand towards her. There was only the faintest hesitation before she responded, and then his head dipped again infinitesimally over her fingers. He turned at once. “Until tonight, then, Mr Templar.”
His soft white hand hovered persuasively in front of the Saint.
Simon enclosed it in brown steel fingers, in a grip like the caress of a hydraulic press set to crack eggshells. He smiled with incomparable hospitality.
“I’ll be looking forward to it,” he murmured cordially, “Dr Julius.”