As it was, fresh pyjamas had to be fetched, the pair laid out being put out of action by the wash of the waves. Then Arthur carried Buff to his room and threw him head-over-heels into bed, sitting by his side for quite half an hour and relating the most thrilling tales of pirates; finally presenting him with two fat half-crowns, and promising that he, Buff, should go up in an aeroplane at the earliest opportunity. Buff, as he lay pillowed on that promise, his two half-crowns laid on a chair beside him along with one or two other grubby treasures, and his heart warm with gratitude, wondered and wondered what he could do in return--and still wondering fell asleep. Elizabeth was knitting a stocking for her young brother, and counted audibly at intervals; Arthur lay in a large arm-chair and looked into the fire. "Buff is frightfully sorry to lose you. _One two_--_one two._ This is a beautiful 'top,' don't you think? Rather like a Persian tile." "Yes," said Arthur rather absently. There was silence for a few minutes; then Elizabeth said, "There is something very depressing about last nights--we would really have been much better at the Band of Hope, and I would have been doing my duty, and thus have acquired merit. I hate people going away. When nice people come to a house they should just stay on and on, after the fashion of princes in fairy-tale stories seeking their fortunes. They stayed about twenty years before it seemed to strike them that their people might be getting anxious." "For myself," said Arthur, "I ask nothing better. You know that, don't you?" "_One two_--_one two_," Elizabeth counted. She looked up from her knitting with twinkling eyes. "Did you hate very much coming? or were you passive in the managing hands of Aunt Alice?" He looked at her impish face blandly, then took out his cigarette case, chose a cigarette carefully, lit it, and smoked with placid enjoyment. "Cross?" she asked, in a few minutes. "Not in the least. Merely wondering if I might tell you the truth." "I wouldn't," said Elizabeth. "Fiction is always stranger and more interesting. By the way, are you to be permanently at the Foreign Office now?" "I haven't the least notion, but I shall be there for the next few months. When do you go to London?" In the spring, she told him, probably in April, and added that her Aunt Alice had been a real fairy godmother to her. "Very few ministers' daughters have had my chances of seeing men and cities. And some day, some day when Buff has gone to school and Father has retired and has time to look about him, we are going to India to see the boys." "You have a very good time in London, I expect," Arthur said. "I can imagine that Aunt Alice makes a most tactful chaperon, and I hear you are very popular." "'Here's fame!'" quoted Elizabeth flippantly. "What else did Aunt Alice tell you about me?" Arthur Townshend put the end of his cigarette carefully into the ash-tray and leant forward.