"I'd stay with you," said Jane, loyally.
"I know you would," said Anthea, gratefully; "but even with you I'd much rather not."
"Well," said Cyril, trying to be kind and amiable, "I don't want you to do anything you think's wrong, but——"
He was silent. This silence said many things.
"I don't see——" Robert was beginning, when Anthea interrupted.
"I'm quite sure. Sometimes you just think a thing's wrong, and sometimes you know. And this is a know time."
The Phœnix turned kind golden eyes on her and opened a friendly beak to say:—
"When it is, as you say, a 'know time' there is no more to be said. And your noble brothers would never leave you."
"Of course not," said Cyril, rather quickly. And Robert said so, too.
"I myself," the Phœnix went on, "am willing to help in any way possible. I will myself go—either by carpet or on the wing—and fetch you anything you can think of to amuse you during the evening. In order to waste no time I could go while you wash up. Why," it went on, in a musing voice, "does one wash up teacups and wash down the stairs?"