"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.
"Pull down the blind and lock the door," he commanded her through the keyhole. "The back door is locked already, so you are quite safe."
As soon as he was gone, and her privacy assured, Toni lost no time in doing as he bade her; and it certainly was a relief to slip out of her clinging garments and plunge into the hot water waiting for her. She did not waste time, remembering his commands; but when it came to a question of re-dressing, and she examined the clothes he had brought, Toni gave way and burst into a fit of irrepressible laughter.