She laughed. "Let me be your banker, will you?"

"With pleasure."

"I'm quite rich, for me. I've got a heap of money in my purse, if I can only find it." She found it, after long seeking. "How much would you like--twenty pounds?"

"Thank you."

"Should I make it thirty?"

"If you could make it thirty."

Some bank-notes changed hands. He thrust them into his waistcoat-pocket, telling himself that that was something on account at any rate.

"Now, your remittances must make haste and come. Thirty pounds is nothing to you; it is a deal to me. Now I am destitute."

She held out her purse for him to see. It still contained a couple of bank-notes and some gold.

"I suppose you couldn't manage to spare the rest?" he said.