Jim chuckled.
“There's no getting round an Irishman when he makes up his mind,” he said. “And if you had to catch the eight o'clock train to Melbourne I believe you'd rather get up at three in the morning and run up the horses to drive in, than leave here comfortably in the car at seven.”
“Is it me to dhrive in it?” demanded Murty, in horror. “Begob, I'd lose me life before I'd get into one of thim quare, sawed-off things. Give me something with shafts, Mr. Jim, and a dacint horse in them. More by token, I would not get up at three in the morning either, but dhrive in aisy an' comfortable the night before.” He beamed on Jim with so clear a conviction that he was unanswerable that Jim hadn't the heart to argue further. Instead he ran the car deftly into a buggy-shed whence an ancient double buggy had been deposed to make room for her, and then fell to discussing with Murty the question of building a garage, with a turn-table and pit for cleaning and repairs. To which Murty gave the eager interest and attention he would have shown had Jim proposed building anything, even had it been an Eiffel Tower on the front lawn.
Brownie came out through the box-trees to the stables, presently.
“Now, Master Jim, afternoon tea's in these ten minutes.”
“Good gracious! I forgot all about tea!” Jim exclaimed. “Thanks awfully, Brownie. Had your own?” He slipped his arm through hers as they turned back to the house.
“Not yet, my dear,” said Brownie, beaming up at him. That this huge Major, with four years of war service to his credit, was exactly the same to her as the little boy she had bathed and dressed in years gone by, was a matter of nightly thanksgiving in her prayers. “I was just goin' to settle to it when it come over me that you weren't in—and the visitors there an' all.”
“I'd come and have mine with you in the kitchen if they weren't there,” Jim told her. “Tea in your kitchen is better than anything else.” He patted her shoulders as he left her at the door of her domain, going off with long strides to wash his hands.
“We didn't wait for you,” Norah said, as he came into the drawing-room; a big cheery room, with long windows opening out upon the veranda, and a conservatory at one end. A fire of red gum logs made it pleasantly warm; the tea table was drawn near its blaze, and the arm-chairs made a semicircle round it. “These poor people looked far too hungry to wait—to say nothing of Wally and myself. How did the car go, Jimmy?”
“Splendidly,” Jim said, taking his cup, and retiring from the tea-table with a scone. “Never ran better; that man in Cunjee knows his job, which I didn't expect. Are you tired, Tommy?”