"I should have thought Mrs. Oxenham would have written to you."

"Of course she has written to me. I got two letters from her last night.

But she has been out of town as long as I have."

"Not quite as long. She stayed a few days after you left, and then she went home; and she took Jenny with her."

"_What!_" Anthony almost bounded from his chair. "Took Jenny to Wandooyamba? As her guest?"

Sarah nodded carelessly. "Wasn't it good of her? She found Jenny looking very ill, and she said she must have a change and rest. And we hurried to get her clothes ready and fix up an evening dress for her, and off she went, and there she has been ever since."

"Ever since," groaned Anthony; "while I have been dawdling on that cursed yacht. If I'd only known----"

"I don't see," said Sarah demurely, "what it has to do with you."

She was a little sore about his long desertion, and wanted to know what it meant before she permitted herself to be confidential.

He plumped down on his seat in front of her. "It has everything to do with me," he said; "everything. Sarah--I am going to call you Sarah from this moment--shall I tell you something?"

She looked at him, holding her breath.

"You must keep it a secret for a little while, until I know whether she will have me. I am going to ask Jenny to be my wife."

He met her eyes boldly, for he had made up his mind; and she, seeing him serious and determined, clasped her hands in a speechless ecstasy of grat.i.tude to Heaven for its goodness to her.

Then he went home and wrote a letter.

"DEAR POLLY,--

"Many thanks for yours, which I got both together last night. We only returned yesterday, or I would have written before. I am glad you found all well at home, and that the kiddies were pleased with their presents. Give them my love. Tell Harry I will see about the buggy and the stores at once; the latter shall go up by goods train to-morrow. I suppose he wants the waggonette big enough to hold you all--something like the old one, only lighter. It might have been rather serious, that smash. He's too risky with his half-broken cattle and his fancy driving, and that Emily always was a fiend incarnate. If she belonged to me I'd shoot her.

"I didn't have such a gaudy time as you seem to think. I'm sure I don't know what I went for, unless it was to get cool, which there was little chance of in a boat so crowded. Lord Nettlebury made a beast of himself as usual, regardless of the ladies, who pretended not to see it just because it was Nettlebury. I told Maude they disgraced themselves more than he did, by their indulgence of him; but women are all alike--or nearly all. It was sickening to see them fawning over the disgusting little brute, who ought to have been pitched overboard.

"Danesbury is the best of fellows--mad on his little English _fiancee_, and with no eyes for anybody else. They chaffed him unmercifully, but he liked it. She has wonderfully improved him. He says they are going to live in the country when she comes out, and he's looking for a place in this colony not too fatiguingly far from town. He's in the right there. Melbourne isn't wholesome. I'm sick of it myself--that is, I'm sick of streets, which are the same everywhere, and of sea, and of men and women who make a child's game of life. I want a sniff of the bush air before I settle down, and I think I'll run up to you to-morrow night, when I've seen about Harry's commissions. We have hardly had a good talk since I came back, and the kids will be forgetting me. Our stepmother has been rather getting on my nerves lately; it will be a relief to be out of her reach for a day or two. And my liver (perhaps that's why I've been so bored) wants horse exercise after so much loafing. Hal and I will have some rides together, tell him. I suppose the poor little beggars have done school, and are in the full swing of holidays by now. They won't object to a few more toys for Santa Claus's stocking, I daresay. I will bring you up some fish in ice, if I can get them fresh enough.

"Yours affectionately,

"A. CHURCHILL."

The writer of this letter posted it at the G.P.O. while spending his afternoon about town, buying buggies and Christmas presents for his sister's family, consequently it went up country by the five o'clock express, and Mrs. Oxenham received it before noon next day. No answer was expected or required, and therefore Tony was surprised and annoyed to get a telegram from her, just as he was thinking it time to change his clothes for his journey, to say,--

"Come to-morrow if equally convenient. Meet you night train."

"What the deuce--oh, here, Jarvis, hold on a bit. Confound the--what on earth does she mean? Can't have got that great house full of guests, so that there isn't a corner for me to sleep in--that would be too absurd.

Going out, perhaps--but she wouldn't stop me for that. Can't be Jenny--she'd stop me altogether if she meant _that_. It's a dashed nuisance anyhow."

The packing was stayed, and he mooned away to the club, because he didn't know what else to do with himself. He was lost for want of occupation, and ridiculously angry at having to kick his heels for twenty-four hours for no earthly purpose that he could see. There was nothing to do or to interest one--there never is under these circ.u.mstances; his journey put back at the last moment, he was stranded until it could be put on again. So he drifted to the club.

There he found his father. It was the old gentleman's habit to play tennis after business, to keep his fat down--a habit formed long years before the lawn variety of the game had been invented; and Tony found him hard at it, and watched him listlessly.

As soon as Mr. Churchill was aware of his son's presence, he exclaimed: "Why, I thought you were off to Wandooyamba to-night!"

"Going to-morrow," returned Tony.

And when the game was over, the father said, "Come out and dine with us to-night, boy. You are deserting us altogether these days, and I've got a lot of business I want to talk over with you."

Tony recognised that it was his duty to accede, because he really had been neglecting his father (but that was Maude's fault); and he acceded accordingly, as cheerfully as he could. Jarvis having been informed by telephone, the two gentlemen took tram together, and were presently seen by Maude from her bedroom window sauntering up the garden, affectionately arm in arm. She dashed aside the gown that had been chosen for the evening, and called for Mrs. Earl's latest--a white brocade, full of gold threads, that was very splendid.

Anthony had leisurely dressed himself in the clothes he kept at Toorak for these chance occasions, and was pulling his coat lappets straight over his big chest when he heard her knock on his door.

"That you, mother?" he called. "How are you?"

"Oh, Tony! Are you ready, Tony?" she called back.

"Yes--no, not quite, I sha'n't be long."

"Do--do make haste and come downstairs. I've something I want to say to you--very particularly--before the others come down."

"All right. I won't be a minute."

He thought he would dawdle on until he heard the "others"--_i.e._, his father--on the stairs; then he thought he might as well hear what the wonderful secret was. It was never safe to put her off. She was liable to burst at wrong times if kept bottled up too long.

CHAPTER XIV

A WEAK FATHER

He found her pacing up and down the long drawing-room with excitement in her face, all the gold drops on the c.r.a.pe front of her dress swinging and twinkling, the stiff train scratching over the carpet. She almost rushed at him when he appeared.

"Tony," she said, laying her heavily diamonded hand upon his arm, "your father says you are going up to Wandooyamba."

He flushed a little, admitting that he was. "And what then?"

"Tony, you--are--not--to--go."

"Oh, indeed! And pray, madam, who are you, to give me orders--_me_, that was dux of my school when you were in your cradle?"

"I am your mother, sir. It is a mother's business to give orders, and a son's to obey them. And I say you are not to go to Wandooyamba."

"If a mother is to issue commands of that sort, and in that tone of voice, the least she can do is to give her reasons for them."

"The reason is that Mary has company up there--people--a _person_--a person that I don't choose you to a.s.sociate with."

"And who may that person be? A he or a she?"

"You know quite well, so don't pretend you don't."