"Oh, no — nothing like that!"
Simon was prepared to give something to know what "that" was that Allen Uttershaw was nothing like. He suspected the worst, in Mrs Ourley's peculiar mind.
He applied an expression of fascinated suspense to his mask, and waited.
"When I say that," she elucidated, "I mean that he's — he's — well, I can only say that he must be anti-social." Her voice became positively vibrant. "Do you know, out of all the times we've invited him to dinner, last night was the first time he's been to see us in months!"
She relaxed triumphantly, with the air of having furnished incontrovertible evidence that the subject under discussion was a dangerous case who should be lured into a padded cell at the earliest opportunity.
Simon clicked his tongue gloomily, shaking his head at the dreadful realisation that his recent companion was indisputably an incurable schizophrene. His manifest distress spurred Mrs Ourley to further expansions.
"Not only that," she said, in confidential accents that could not possibly have been heard more than three tables away, "but I think he has a grudge against Milton. Of course, he's just as friendly and charming as he can be when he's with us, but he does things behind Milton's back."
"How horrible," muttered the Saint solemnly, with no qualms at all that either innuendo or sarcasm would register on that target.
He was absolutely right, for whatever satisfaction the experiment was worth.
"Yes, indeed," she trilled. "For instance, when Milton was put up for one of Allen's clubs, only a little while ago, he was voted down. And I have it on very good authority that it was Allen who blackballed him. And after he'd been a guest in our home, too!"