Fuchsia was too thrilled to speak. She only stared, happy beyond happiness. Steerpike got to his feet and grinned at her, the lamplight glinting upon his uneven teeth. He went at once to the basin and renewed his ablutions more vigorously than ever.

While Fuchsia knelt on her bed and Steerpike rubbed his head and face with an ancient and grubby towel, there came a knock upon the door and Nannie Slagg’s voice piped out thinly:

‘Is my conscience there? Is my sweet piece of trouble there? Are you there, my dear heart, then? Are you there?’

‘No, Nannie, no, I’m not! Not now. Go away and come back again soon, and I’ll be here,’ shouted Fuchsia thickly, scrambling to the door. And then with her mouth to the keyhole: ‘What d’you want? What d’you want?’

‘Oh, my poor heart! what’s the matter, then? What’s the matter, then? What is it, my conscience?’

‘Nothing, Nannie. Nothing. What d’you want?’ said Fuchsia, breathing hard.

Nannie was used to Fuchsia’s sudden and strange changes of mood; so after a pause in which Fuchsia could hear her sucking her wrinkled lower lip, the old nurse answered:

‘It’s the Doctor, dear. He says he’s got a present for you, my baby. He wants you to go to his house, my only, and I’m to take you.’

Fuchsia, hearing a ‘Tck! tck!’ behind her, turned and saw a very clean-looking Steerpike gesturing to her. He nodded his head rapidly and jerked his thumb at the door, and then, with his index and longest finger strutting along the wash-stand, indicated, as far as she could read, that she should accept the offer to walk to the Doctor’s with Nannie Slagg.

‘All right!’ shouted Fuchsia, ‘but I’ll come to your room. Go there and wait.’

‘Hurry, then, my love!’ wailed the thin, perplexed voice from the passage. ‘Don’t keep him waiting.’

As Mrs Slagg’s feet receded, Fuchsia shouted: ‘What’s he giving me?’

But the old nurse was beyond earshot.

Steerpike was dusting his clothes as well as he could. He had brushed his sparse hair and it looked like dank grass as it lay flatly over his big forehead.

‘Can I come, too?’ he said.

Fuchsia turned her eyes to him quickly.

‘Why?’ she said at last.

‘I have a reason,’ said Steerpike. ‘You can’t keep me here all night, anyway, can you?’

This argument seemed good to Fuchsia and, ‘Oh, yes, you can come, too,’ she said at once. ‘But what about Nannie,’ she added slowly. ‘What about my nurse?’

‘Leave her to me,’ said Steerpike. ‘Leave her to me.’

Fuchsia hated him suddenly and deeply for saying this, but she made no answer.