I shook my head. "I better not. I may try to jog and then I have work to do."

"Kinseys a private detective," he said to her.

Lila's eyes got big and she blinked in wonderment. "Oh my goodness. Well, how interesting!" She spoke effusively, implying more enthusiasm than etiquette required. I wasn't nearly that thrilled with her and I'm sure she sensed it. I like older women as a rule. I like almost all women, as a matter of fact. I find them open and confiding by nature, amusingly candid when it comes to talk of men. This one was of the old school; giddy and flirtatious. She'd despised me on sight.

She looked at Henry and patted the chaise pad. "Now, you sit down here, you bad boy. I won't have you waiting on me hand and foot. Can you believe it, Kinsey? All he's done this afternoon is fetch me this, fetch me that." She bent over the canape plate, enthralled. "Now, what is this one?"

I glanced at Henry, half expecting him to shoot me a pained look, but he had settled on the chaise as commanded, peering over at the plate. "That's smoked oyster. And that's a little cream cheese and chutney. You'll like that one. Here."

He was apparently about to hand-feed her, but she smacked at him ineffectually.

"Quit that. You take one for yourself. You are spoiling the life out of me, and what's more, you're going to make me get fat!"

I could feel my face set with discomfort, watching their two heads bent together. Henry is fifty years older than I am and our relationship has always been completely decorous, but I wondered if this was how he felt on those rare occasions in the past when he'd spotted some guy rolling out of my place at six A.M.

"Talk to you later, Henry," I said, moving toward my front door. I don't even think he heard me.