"That's fair enough," Uttershaw agreed easily. "As I explained last night, I've got a financial interest. 'The loss of wealth is loss of dirt', if you believe John Heywood — or should I have said Christopher Morley? — but it happens to be my dirt, and I think that's a responsibility as well as a privilege. The other interest is — well, I've got to be trite and call it patriotic. Then, I like you as a person; and I'd like you to bring this off. I'd like to help you, if I could; but I don't want to sound foolish by making great revelations which might be all old and stale to you."
"For instance," said the Saint, just as pleasantly, "what was the great revelation you had in mind?"
"I was wondering if you'd formed any definite conclusions about Ourley."
Simon enjoyed more mouthfuls. He was hungry. But he didn't miss any of the lines of sober anxiety in the other's thinly sculptured face.
"He appears to be a little man with a large wife," he said trivially.
"And though his favorite seat be feeble woman's breast," quoted Uttershaw mournfully. "Milton really does prefer them feeble, and with all that — shall we say? — giddiness of hers, Tiny Titania is as tough as her own stays. And while she likes her own dancing partners, she watches him like a hawk. He isn't even allowed to have a typist under forty in his office."
The Saint had a sudden strange creeping feeling in his spine.
"Does Milton take it and like it," he asked, "or does he still manage to get his fun?"
Uttershaw shook his head deprecatingly.
"I wouldn't know about that," he said. "I told you we were never very close."