"Good enough."
He went through into the garage, and in another moment the mighty car was roaring round to. pull up snorting at the front door… And the Saint returned, as Mr. Teal, roused by the commotion, emerged from the back of the hall.
"Going away?" asked Teal.
"Just for a drive… Jill, you'd better have a leather coat — take this one… That's the idea… I'll take those things, Orace."
He saw the girl into the car, and came back to fetch another coat from the stand. Teal buttonholed him.
"Is this an elopement, Saint?"
"Now that's just what it isn't, Claud….. No, the Old Pentonvillains choker, Orace… Anything I can do for you on the way, Claud Eustace?"
"If it is an elopement," said Teal lusciously, "you fixed it up quick enough."
Simon twisted the scarf round his neck and canted his most piratical hat at its most piratical angle over his right eye. And then he tapped the detective gently on the shoulder.
"Has it never occurred to you," he said, "that one day a story might be written in which the heroine didn't fall in love with the hero, and the hero didn't fall in love with the heroine — and they were both perfectly happy in spite of that? Because this is that story. I am the most superlative story-book hero that ever lived, but the rules were not made for me."