'This is not the way we meant to welcome your daughter, Mrs. Cameron,' he said, laughing, as he clung by one hand to the timber, 'but, as you see, we're all mad together to-day. By to-morrow we shall have calmed down a little, and there will be a deputation and everything in order. You'll be at the Australia, of course?'
'Yes, I have rooms waiting for them,' Cameron said quietly.
So the pleasant, long-haired fellow drifted away, and Cameron, at the first chance, steered his little family out of the thinning crowd, and found a cab to take them to the peace of the hotel.
They took their hats off. Waiters seemed to think eating was a necessity, and brought in a meal, and stood, two of them, to help serve.
Mrs. Cameron turned her head.
'We would rather wait on ourselves,' she said. 'We have everything that we shall need, thank you, so you may go.'
Cameron drew a relieved breath, though he would as soon have thought of dismissing the men himself as of calmly ordering one of those magnificent colonels out of his way during the afternoon.
'Now we can be cosy,' Challis said, and sat down on her father's knee, instead of using the chair the waiter had placed for her. 'Are we like what you thought?' she asked. 'Someway I can't think now how I could have fancied you would be any different. Oh, I'm sure you're just like what I thought, only——' She paused then, and a little sensitive flush ran up into her cheeks. She had almost said, 'Only your beard is grey.'
But her eyes had gone to its greyness.
'Yes,' he said a little sadly, 'I didn't wait for you, Molly, did I? We always said we would grow old together, but I have left you far behind.'