He looked at Avalon and winked.
"In other words, your theory — 'Faites ce que voudras,' if I may borrow from an older philosopher — is jake so long as you and I are the guys who are doing what they damn please. So far I only know one of your forms of self-indulgence, and you only know one of mine. I have others."
Avalon smiled; and the Saint marvelled that all those people who were so busy clattering their silverware, churning the air with inanities, and trying to impress a lot of people who were only interested in impressing them, shouldn't feel the radiance of that smile and halt in the middle of whatever they were doing. They should feel that smile, and pause. And think of things lost, of beauties remembered, and recapture rapture again.
But they didn't. The bebosomed Helen Hokinson woman at the nearest table giggled at the young man opposite her; the promoter type over there went right on citing figures, no doubt, blowing a bugle of prosperity; the Hollywood actress went on ogling the Broadway producer, who went on ogling her, being just as happy to get her in his highly speculative play as she was to have the chance of reviving a career which had failed to quite keep up with her press agent.
The Saint sighed.
He turned his attention back to Dr. Zellermann, waiting for a hint of the point that must be shown sometime.
"Another drink?" asked the doctor.
They had another drink; and then Zellermann said, with a thread of connection which was so strained that it sang: "I imagine one of the things you would like is forming theories about current crimes as the newspapers report them. That Foley murder in Brooklyn, for instance, rather intrigues me."
The Saint took a deep pull on his cigarette; and a little pulse began to beat way inside him as he realised that this, at last, whatever it was, was it.
His own decision was made in a split second. If that was how Zellermann wanted it, okay. And if Zellermann favored the shock technique, Simon was ready to bounce it right back without batting an eyelid and see what happened.