"Just saying hello," Thomas Boyd grinned. "Back at work?"
Boyd didn't know, of course, what had happened. Nor need he ever know. "Just about," Malone said. "Spending the evening relaxing, though."
"Hm-m-m," Boyd said. "Let me guess. Her name begins with L?"
"It does not," Malone said flatly.
"But—" Boyd began.
Malone cast about in his mind for an explanation. Telling Boyd the truth—that Luba and Kenneth J. Malone just weren't equals as far as social intercourse went—would leave him exactly nowhere. But, somehow, it had to be said. "Tom," he said, "suppose you met a beautiful girl—charming, wonderful, brilliant."
"Great," Boyd said. "I like it already."
"Suppose she looked about ... oh ... twenty-three," Malone went on.
"Do any more supposing," Boyd said, "and I'll be pawing the ground."
"And then," Malone said, very carefully, "suppose you found out, after you'd been out with her ... well, when you took her out, say, you met your grandmother."