Friday, Saturday and Sunday passed, each with a separate, hurrying pace
that quickened towards bed-time.
Mark's last night. She had left her door open so that she could hear him
come upstairs. He came and sat on her bed as he used to do years ago when
she was afraid of the ghost in the passage.
"I shan't be away for ever, Minky. Only five years."
"Yes, but you'll be twenty-six then, and I shall be nineteen. We shan't
be ourselves."
"I shall be my self. Five years isn't really long."
"You--you'll like it, Mark. There'll be jungles with bisons and tigers."
"Yes. Jungles."
"And polo."
"Shan't be able to go in for polo."
"Why not?"
"Ponies. Too expensive."
They sat silent.
"What I _don't_ like," Mark said in a sleepy voice, "is leaving Papa."
"Papa?"
He really meant it. "Wish I'd been decenter to him," he said.