"I'm afraid you'll be dull, Georgiana," he said, rising. "It's awfully good of you to come, and perhaps you can find some amusement. You can do what you like, you know—so long as you don't touch my study, or trick it up like a heathen place in Japan. The fact is, I find I must leave you and mother for a day or two. Is that the dogcart? My train is at half-past ten."
Georgiana looked out of the window. There was the dogcart, and a beast of a brown horse pawing and snorting, to take him away to the country station. She turned round angrily, like a person who had been cheated.
"Why?" she asked.
"Dolly!" he cried in a voice of triumph.—p. 224.
Freddy had left the breakfast table, and was stacking his letters behind the clock. He answered her with a kind of chuckle—
"Important business."
Three minutes later, he was running down the stairs, got up for a journey. Mrs. Cockburn was just saying good-morning to the rather blank-looking visitor, and he kissed her hurriedly.
"I must go off at once," he said. "Georgiana will explain. And I say, mother"—in a tone of anxious hospitality—"don't let her go home, or anything, till I come back. I must catch the early train."
III.