"What he mean, him?" Dytie asked Phil. "He means pussycat?"
Phil nodded.
"I mean the Green One," Sacheverell confirmed a bit reprovingly. "I mean Bast Returned, the Bringer of Love and Concord."
Dytie didn't bother with that, but went on to whisper to Phil, "He say Op'ly. Op'ly nice slim man there good face? Meet us please."
Sacheverell was getting set for a speech and he gave Phil a faintly pained look when the latter performed the desired introduction. Dr. Opperly surprised Phil by gallantly kissing Dytie's hand and then not letting go of it. He didn't behave at all like a scientist of eighty-plus years should. And Dytie turned on a lot more charm than Phil recalled her using on him. As the two of them stood there murmuring happy but probably highly intelligent nothings to each other, Phil felt a jealous impulse to call out to Opperly, "Wait until you see her real legs," but he somehow suspected that Opperly wouldn't be shocked at Dytie's real legs or anything about her. He had noted a look of surprise come into Opperly's face as the latter took Dytie's hand, and from his own experience he'd known why, but Opperly's surprise had turned not to revulsion, but to eager interest.
Opperly's voice suddenly became sharp, clear and romantic: "I'd be delighted to, Miss da Silva."
Dytie turned to the others with a self-satisfied smile. "Op'ly me got much talk 'bout," she announced. "'Scuse please. Dion you take care pussycat business me."
And she and Dr. Opperly strolled out through the dining room arm in arm, beaming at each other and chatting happily.
Sacheverell looked after them a shade critically. "They don't seem to have any great regard for the importance of the situation, I must say, so we'll carry on by ourselves in making plans to rescue the Green One. Mr. Gish, what have you to contribute?"
In a few sentences Phil sketched how he'd found Lucky at Fun Incorporated, lost him again, then caught up with him at the Humberford Foundation just before Dora Pannes grabbed him.