“I don’t understand. You don’t mean that he’s stayed and the Delanes have gone?”
“Lord forbid! Why should they, either? Hayley’s apologized!”
My jaw fell, and I returned my host’s stare.
“Apologized? To that hound? For what?”
Alstrop gave an impatient shrug. “Oh, for God’s sake don’t reopen the cursèd question,” it seemed to say. Aloud he echoed: “For what? Why, after all, a man’s got a right to thrash his own poney, hasn’t he? It was beastly unsportsmanlike, of course—but it’s nobody’s business if Byrne chooses to be that kind of a cad. That’s what Hayley saw—when he cooled down.”
“Then I’m sorry he cooled down.”
Alstrop looked distinctly annoyed. “I don’t follow you. We had a hard enough job. You said you wanted to see him in a rage just once; but you don’t want him to go on making an ass of himself, do you?”
“I don’t call it making an ass of himself to thrash Byrne.”
“And to advertise his conjugal difficulties all over Long Island, with twenty newspaper reporters at his heels?”
I stood silent, baffled but incredulous. “I don’t believe he ever gave that a thought. I wonder who put it to him first in that way?”