Prather regarded the table where Avalon parried verbs with Sam Jeffries with the concentration of a man sucking a piece of popcorn out of a cavity.
"Thank you," he said with a grimness that was rather surprising. "I'll be glad to."
Sam was on his life story, apparently having begun at the present, and was working backward.
"... and there was this guy we had to see in Shanghai. Joe wanted to get drunk right off, but I says no we gotta see this guy before..."
He broke off, looked up. No flicker of recognition moved his brown face as he glanced incuriously at Prather. To the Saint, Sam said: "I was just tellin' Miss Dexter about our last trip."
Something happened, but the Saint didn't catch it. It could have been a glance, a shake of the head, a kick in the ankle, from James Prather. For Sam suddenly froze. He didn't look at Prather, he didn't look at anybody, but you could see his thoughts and amiable chatter roll themselves up like armadillos and become impregnable and lifeless. All the warm lights went out of his eyes, and his smile became a fixed liability.
His social immobility somehow conveyed itself to Joe, who underwent little change to achieve Sam's frozen state. Both young men rose to shake hands as the Saint performed introductions, but, like Mudville on the night of Casey's disaster, there was no joy in them. Sam remained standing, long, lean, and brown.
"Guess we better shove off, huh, Joe?"
"Yeah," Joe said, meeting nobody's eye. "Guess so."
"Don't run away, boys," Avalon said. But she said it perfunctorily. She knew they were going. Her tone was a politeness, not an urging.