She followed him obediently through the long window into the shabby sitting-room, which for all its shabbiness had an oddly harmonious effect; and from there he took her into the small, cosy kitchen, which was scrupulously tidy and spotlessly clean. "Now"--he looked at her a little dubiously--"obviously, the thing to do is to get off those wet clothes, have a hot bath, and put on something dry. Well, if I bring my tub in here and fill it from the boiler, would you mind having it in the kitchen? You see, I don't want you to get cold." "Oh, I don't think I need do that," said Toni, between laughing and crying. "If you lent me a mackintosh or a big coat I could get home quite well." "What--as you are?" He smiled at her, but so kindly that she could not take offence. "Well, to begin with, your punt is miles away by now, and anyway you are much too wet to leave this house. Now"--he went briskly to the door--"I'm going to fetch my bath and I'll have it filled in a jiffy. You'll feel all right after a hot soak." He went out, leaving Toni, very wet and uncomfortable, in the middle of the floor. In a minute he returned, dragging after him a good-sized bath, filled to the brim with towels of every description. "Now, I'll put it here, in front of the fire." He worked as he spoke. "And if I fill these two big cans there'll be enough water. What a blessing Mrs. Swastika kept a good fire to-day." "Mrs. Swastika?" In the midst of her discomfiture Toni thought the name odd. "Oh, that's not her real name." He filled the cans vigorously. "She is really Swanson or Swanage or something like that--but I never know what it is, so I call her Swastika. She is rather like the individual in the 'Hunting of the Snark,' who 'answered to Hi or to any loud cry,' but it's handy having a name to call her by sometimes." He broke off in his nonsense and disappeared abruptly, leaving Toni wondering whether she was intended to begin her ablutions or no. Luckily she decided to wait a moment, and was glad she had done so when her host returned, bearing in his arms some garments, which he put down on a chair rather apologetically. "I'm really most awfully sorry, Mrs. Rose, but I've no feminine fripperies of any sort! But if you can possibly make these things do for a bit, I'll send a boy on a bicycle down to your place and tell them to put together some clothes for you." "Oh, will you?" Toni was beginning to find her soaked garments rather unpleasantly chilly. "I live at Greenriver--oh, you know?--and if you tell the housekeeper to send me everything, she'll know what I want." "Very well." He had been busying himself with a little saucepan over the fire as she spoke, and now he handed her a glass containing some mulled wine. "I'll dispatch a lad at once--in the meantime please drink this--it's quite harmless, I assure you!" As she took the glass he hurried to the door, and went out, pulling it carefully to after him.