"Thank you," he said.
"But I," she said, "I, too, have things of yours to return."
"Of mine?" He lifted his eyebrows expectantly.
She waved a hand, white and clean as a cherry blossom, toward a claw-footed table on which stood decanters, ice, soda, cigarettes, cigars, and matches.
"Your collateral," she said.
"Oh," said David. "But I have decided not to be a backslider."
"I know," she said. "But in business—as a matter of form."
"Oh," said David, "if it's a matter of form, it must be complied with."
He stepped to the table, smiling charmingly, and poured from the nearest decanter into a glass, added ice and soda, and lifting the mixture touched it to his lips, and murmured, "To you."