He crossed to the side table again and half refilled his glass while he was left alone, and turned back to meet Avalon Dexter as the outer door closed and her skirts swished through the entrance of the room again.
"Well?" She was smiling at him, as he was convinced now that nobody else could smile. "How do you like that?"
"I don't," he said soberly.
"Oh, she's as whacky as the rest of Cookie's clique," she said carelessly. "Don't pay any attention to her. It's just like Cookie to try and send an ambassador to do her apologising for her. It'd hurt too much if she ever had to do it herself. But just this once I'm not going to—"
"I'm afraid you've missed something," Simon said, still soberly, and perhaps more deliberately. "Natello didn't come here to deliver Cookie's apologies. I've got to tell you that."
Avalon Dexter carried her glass over to the side table.
"Well, what did she come for?"
"You went out with a beautiful exit line. Only it was just too good. That's why Cookie is so unhappy now. And that's why she had Natello drop in. To find out what kind of a hook-up there might be between us. It happens that there wasn't any." The Saint put his glass transiently to his mouth. "But that isn't what Natello found out."
The break in her movements might have been no more than an absent-minded search for the right bottle.
"So what?" she asked.