"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 circumstances; 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?"