"Much better." Who needed the extra supervision? Certainly not him, certainly not now. "You don't need to go," he replied immediately, although it would have been the sensible thing to do. He did have work to do, and it was getting awfully late to have people around for a social call. And they had polished off a bottle of wine. ... There were plenty of reasons to be parting ways, actually, as little as he wanted to. "But the mail comes early, and most of it doesn't open itself."