"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 crape 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."