"You look like a living tribute to her genius," said the Saint with a straight face; and Mrs Ourley beamed.
"You say the sweetest things. But I was telling you about Milton. I know I shouldn't talk about my own husband, but he's ridiculously jealous. He…"
Simon listened with the utmost interest to her description of some of the unreasonableness of Mr Milton Ourley, and while he listened he was studying the face of the woman across the table.
He had to admit that the ideas which Uttershaw had planted were astonishingly fertile. There was a rapacious ruthlessness below the surface of gabbling imbecility which Titania Ourley displayed to the public which could make a lot of surprising pictures of her plausible. Without knowing anything else about her, he knew that she would make a dangerous enemy; and he knew that the effusive gush which enveloped her like her appalling perfume could provide a lot of study for a post-graduate student of camouflage.
The tale of Milton Ourley's derelictions went on and on while the Saint thought about it. He nodded regularly, and made encouraging noises in the right places, and managed to look quite disappointed when the recital was interrupted by the return of Allen Uttershaw.
"Do sit down," said Mrs Ourley hospitably. "I was just telling Simon — I mean Mr Templar — I mean Simon—"
"I'm sorry," Uttershaw said suavely. "I'm still a working man, you know. That call was from my office, and I'm afraid some other working men are getting impatient."
"You're a meanie!"
Mrs Ourley made a moue. This was undoubtedly something she had read about in a magazine. In her interpretation, it looked a little as if she had just detected the presence of a dead rat in the room.
"Forgive me," Uttershaw said. "It isn't because I want to 'scorn delights and live laborious days'." He turned to Simon, and held out his hand with a smile that contained a hint of wicked amusement which had nothing to do with the ordinary urbanities. "I'm glad to leave you in such good company." He glanced at Mrs Ourley again. "By the way, where is Milton?"