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leaving on safari this afternoon,” she told him.
    His sleepy gaze sharpened. “This afternoon? Not by any chance the five-day Kafue Park safari starting officially tomorrow morning?”
    She looked at him in astonishment. “As a matter of fact, yes. You don’t mean—?”
    He nodded. “Exactly. Arrival at Chunga camp in late afternoon, with game-viewing on the river tomorrow morning, followed by Kafwala camp in the afternoon?”
    “Yes, with pickup at two-thirty here by Homer?”
    He shook his head. “Sorry about that. We’re driving. Lisa’s idea.” He looked at her and added frankly, “Damn sorry about that, actually, but if I’ll see you again the fates are smiling. You’re—uh—what’s the word they use these days, unattached?”
    “A widow.”
    “Ought to say I’m sorry but can’t. I like you.”
    She looked at him and began to laugh. “I really like your directness but I’m not accustomed, you know, to such—such—”
    “Unabashed admiration? Can’t think why not. You look alive,” he said firmly. “Can’t stand dull people.”
    “I’m very dull,” Mrs. Pollifax told him sincerely. “I do volunteer work—not very efficiently—and raise geraniums and really—that is, in
general
,” she added conscientiously, “live a very quiet life.”
    “Doesn’t mean a thing,” he said. “You look interested, a sense of wonder lingers. True?”
    “I feel like a witness being cross-examined on the stand.”
    He nodded. “Bad habit of mine, the trouble with being a lawyer. My two children call it a deficiency—or rather, when they’re pleased with me they say I’m direct, when they’re angry I’m blunt.”
    “You have two children, then?”
    He nodded. “Boy’s thirty, the girl—that’s Lisa—twenty-six.Raised them myself since their mother died, which happened when Lisa was three years old, and then said hands off, at least until two years ago. You’ve children?”
    Mrs. Pollifax nodded. “Also a boy and a girl, both of them grown up and parents now. But what happened two years ago?”
    “Had to rescue Lisa,” he said, leaning back for the waiter to deposit dishes in front of them. “You can’t imagine from what squalor,” he added, “which wouldn’t have mattered a tinker’s damn if she was happy. Found her living in the East Village in New York doing social work, weight down to ninety-six pounds and crying her heart out over a chap she’d been in love with.” He snorted indignantly. “Loved him, she said, because he cared. Trouble was the chap seems to have cared indiscriminately—about women mainly, I gather—and led her a merry chase. Considering Lisa graduated
magna cum laude
from Radcliffe it seemed very unintelligent of her.”
    “Emotions have nothing to do with intellect,” pointed out Mrs. Pollifax.
    “You understand that,” he said, nodding. “Lisa didn’t.”
    “What’s happened to her since then?” asked Mrs. Pollifax.
    “You’ll see her,” he reminded her. “Cool, brisk, businesslike, that’s Lisa. Liked her better when she tumbled for every cause that came along. Warm-hearted, ardent child.”
    “Then of course she still is,” put in Mrs. Pollifax.
    “Somewhere, yes, but in the last two years she’s grown a shell three feet thick. Thought the trip might do her good. Not healthy for either of us, living together. Exhausting.”
    Mrs. Pollifax put down her fork and smiled at him. “Is there anything that doesn’t exhaust you?”
    He directed a sleepy glance at her and smiled. “As a matter of fact a few things … good food, good talk, collecting rare books … still play a decent game of tennis and I’ve been known to rouse myself at dawn for bird-watching.”
    “That’s hard to imagine. Are you,” she asked sternly, “ecology-minded?”
    “Passionately,” he said with a straight face.
    Mrs. Pollifax laughed and decided at that moment that if she had been deprived of Farrell’s company during her few hours in Lusaka, then