"Will you have a cigarette?" asked Flamby, in a faint voice. "You may smoke your pipe if you would rather."
"May I really?" said Paul buoyantly. "It is a very foul pipe, and will perfume your curtains frightfully."
"I like it. Lots of my visitors smoke pipes."
"You have a number of visitors, Flamby?"
"Heaps. I never had so many friends in my life."
Paul began to charge his briar from a tattered pouch. "Have you ever thought, Flamby, that I neglected you?" he asked slowly.
"Neglected me? Of course not. You have been to see me twice, and I felt all the time that I was keeping you from your work. Besides—why should I expect you to bother about me?"
"You have every reason to expect it, Flamby. Your father was—a tenant of my uncle, and as I am my uncle's heir, his debts are mine. Your father saved me from the greatest loss in the world. Lastly"—he lighted his pipe—"I want you to count me amongst your friends."
He held the extinguished match in his fingers, looking around for an ash-tray. Flamby jumped up, took the match and threw it in the hearth, then returned slowly to her place. Her hands were rather unsteady, and she tucked them away behind her, squeezing up closely against the cushions. "We are friends," she said. "You have always been my friend."
"I don't want you to feel alone in the world, as though nobody cared for you. When Don is home I have no fear, but when he is away there is really no one to study your interests, and, after all, Flamby, you are only a girl."