"I felt I just had to see you and explain, Simon dear," she said. "Milton's behavior was so downright disgraceful last night — wasn't it, Allen?"
Uttershaw tried to achieve some sort of pleasant and neutral vagueness; but the effort was hardly necessary, for Mrs Ourley had only paused for a swift breath.
"I'd thought that perhaps later we might get in a rumba or two with the Capehart — I've got simply stacks and stacks of records — but as it was you couldn't even stay for dinner. And after I'd told Frankfurter — he's our butler, and a perfect jewel of a butler if I ever saw one, and of course I've seen so many. But the way Milton acted. Well, really, it was a complete surprise to me. And after you'd taken the time and trouble to come all the way out to Oyster Bay and use up your gas and tires and everything to try and help him out of that terrible iridium mess. We had a dreadful spat about it last night, and I told him he was either too rude to live or as good as a traitor; and he said — well, you heard how he talks when he's angry, and I can't bring myself to repeat it. But I was so hoping I'd find you here so that I could tell you it wasn't my fault."
"I never thought it was," said the Saint reassuringly, and was fortunately rescued from further contortions by the intrusion of a bellboy in search of Uttershaw for a telephone call.
"Excuse me," Uttershaw said, with a tinge of humorous malice, and went gracefully away.
Mrs Ourley watched him go with a kind of middle-aged lasciviousness, dislocated her hat again as she turned back to the table, balanced it once more with the same nonchalant agility, and said: "Isn't he the most charming man?"
"A nice character," said the Saint.
"And he's a divine dancer. And always so wonderfully tactful. I don't know what I'd have done if he hadn't been there last night. Milton is simply impossible when he gets into one of his moods. It's a good thing they never last more than a few weeks. But really, Simon — I hope you don't mind me calling you Simon, but I'm beginning to feel as if I'd known you for years — really, you must come out to dinner with us one night. I've got a simply wonderful cook — she makes pics that literally melt in your mouth, I mean literally melt."
"Simple Simon met a pieman, going to the fair," murmured the Saint, and immediately decided that this quotation mechanism was something that had to be taken firmly in hand.
"What?… Oh, you silly boy! Of course I didn't mean anything like that. But my cook really is a treasure."