he had the usual quota of heads and could speak at least broken English.
When the last of the Black Widowers arrived, therefore, and when Henry's efficient setting of the table was nearly complete, Geoffrey Avalon, standing, as always, straight and tall, sounded almost light - hearted as he said, "I see that your guest has not arrived yet, Mario."
Gonzalo, whose crimson velvet jacket and lightly striped blue pants reduced everything else in the room to monochrome said, "Well - "
Avalon said, "What's more, a quick count of the settings placed at the table by our inestimable Henry shows that six people and no more are to be seated. And since all six of us are here, I can only conclude that you have not brought a guest."
"Thank Anacreon," said Emmanuel Rubin, raising his drink, "or whatever spirit it is that presides over convivial banquets of kindred souls."
Thomas Trumbull scowled and brushed back his crisply waved white hair with one hand. "What are you doing, Mario? Saving money?"
"Well - " said Gonzalo again, staring at his own drink with a totally spurious concentration.
Roger Halsted said, "I don't know that this is so good. I like the grilling sessions."
"It won't hurt us," said Avalon, in his deepest voice, "to have a quiet conversation once in a while. If we can't amuse each other without a guest, then the Black Widowers are not what once they were and we should prepare, sorrowing, for oblivion. Shall we offer Mario a vote of thanks for his unwonted discretion?"
"Well - " said Gonzalo a third time.
James Drake interposed, stubbing out a cigarette and clearing his throat. "It seems to me, gentlemen, that Mario is trying to say something and is amazingly bashful about it. If he has something he hesitates to say, I fear we are not going to like it. May I suggest we all keep quiet and let him talk."
"Well - " said Gonzalo, and stopped. This time, though, there was a prolonged and anxious silence.
"Well - " said Gonzalo again, "I do have a guest," and once more he stopped.
Rubin said, "Then where the hell is he?"
"Downstairs in the main dining room - ordering dinner - at my expense, of course."
Gonzalo received five blank stares. Then Trumbull said, "May I ask what dunderheaded reason you can possibly advance for that?"
"Aside," said Rubin, "from being a congenital dunderhead?"
Gonzalo put his drink down, took a deep breath, and said, firmly, "Because I thought she would be more comfortable down there."
Rubin managed to get out an "And why - " before the significance of the pronoun became plain. He seized the lapels of Gonzalo's jacket, "Did you say 'she'?"
Gonzalo caught at the other's wrists. "Hands off, Manny. If you want to talk, use your lips not your hands. Yes, I said 'she.'"
Henry, his sixtyish, unlined face showing a little concern, raised his voice a diplomatic notch and said, "Gentlemen! Dinner is served!"
Rubin, having released Gonzalo, waved imperiously at Henry and said, "Sorry, Henry, there may be no banquet. - Mario, you damned jackass, no woman can attend these meetings."
There was, in fact, a general uproar. While no one quite achieved the anger and decibels of Rubin, Gonzalo found himself at bay with the five others around him in a semicircle. Their individual comments were lost in the general explosion of anger.
Gonzalo, waving his arms madly, leaped onto a chair and shouted, "Let me speak!" over and over until out of exhaustion, it seemed, the opposition died off into a low growl.
Gonzalo said, "She is not our guest at the banquet. She's just a woman with a problem, an old woman, and it won't do us any harm if we see her after dinner."
There was no immediate response and Gonzalo said, "She needn't sit at the table. She can sit in the doorway."
Rubin said, "Mario, if she comes in here, I go, and if I go, damn it, I may not come back ever."
Gonzalo said, "Are you saying you'll break up the Black Widowers rather than listen to an old woman in trouble?"
Rubin said, "I'm saying rules are rules!"
Halsted, looking deeply troubled, said, "Listen, Manny, maybe we ought to do this. The rules weren't delivered to us from Mount Sinai."
"You, too?" said Rubin, savagely. "Look, it doesn't matter what any of you say. In a matter as fundamental as this, one blackball is enough, and I cast it. Either she goes or I go and, by God, you'll never see me again. In view of that, is