When he got back to the table, everything had been settled. Patrick Hogan proclaimed that when his great-grandfather sailed for America, all the luggage he had was in his coat pockets, and he could do anything that his great-grandfather could do. He was certain that, next to his great-grandfather and himself, his pal Tom Simons was just as expert at light travelling.
"I can take you in my car," Zellermann said convivially. "There's plenty of room."
Simon didn't doubt it was a car you could play badminton in.
"I'll have to stay till the bitter end," said Cookie, "and Dexter will probably want to pick up some things. I'll bring her."
It was worked out just as easily and rapidly as that. But Simon knew that aside from the hospitable cooperation, Avalon Dexter was not intended to know that Dr. Zellermann would be a member of the house party. Or he hoped he knew it.
He had some confirmation of that when they were leaving.
Avalon seemed to be on her way back from the powder room when they started out. There was a rather lost and apart expression on her face that no one else might have seen. Zellermann half stopped her.
"Good evening, Avalon," he said, half formally and half engagingly.
"How are you?" Avalon said, very brightly and very cheerfully and without a pause, so that before he could have said anything else she was neatly past him and gone.
Zellermann stood looking after her without a ripple of reaction, his face as smooth as a head of marble.