"I'm sorry," Malone said in what he hoped was a charming, debonair, and apologetic voice. It was quite a lot to get into one voice, but he tried his very hardest. "I just didn't see—"
"You didn't?" the girl said. She took a long, slow look at him, shook her head again, and then pulled her skirt down carefully. "If you didn't, you must be blind," she said.
Malone noticed with hope that there was no anger in her voice. The last thing in the world he wanted was to get this girl angry at him.
"Oh, no," Malone said. "I'm not blind. Not blind at all." He smiled at her and stood up. His tail throbbed a little, but it didn't seem to be anything really serious. "I'm just polite," he said, and smiled again. His face was beginning to get a little tired, but he retained his last smile as he went over to her, extended a hand and pulled her to her feet.
She was something special. Her hair was long and dark, and fell in soft waves to her shoulders. The shoulders were something all by themselves, but Malone postponed consideration of them for a minute to take a look at her face.
It was heart-shaped and rather thin. She had large brown liquid eyes that could look, Malone imagined, appealing, loving, worshiping—or, like a minute ago, downright furious. Below these features she had a straight lovely nose and a pair of lips which Malone immediately classified as kissable.
Her figure, including the shoulders, was on the slim side, but she was very definitely all there. Malone couldn't think of any parts the Creator had left out, and if there were any he didn't want to hear about them. In an instant, Malone knew that he had met the only great love of his life.
Again.
His mind was whirling, and for a second he didn't know what to do. And then he remembered the Queen's Own FBI. Phrases flowered forth in his mind as if it were a garden packed corner to corner with the most exquisite varieties of blooming idiots.
"My deepest apologies, my dear," Sir Kenneth Malone said gallantly, even managing a small display bow for the occasion. "May I be of any assistance?"