Part 2 (1/2)

'Don't remind me how old I am. There's the difference between a man and a woman. My life's behind me: yours in front of you.'

'I don't know about that, Joan. I've had my spell of roughing it--droving, mining, pioneering--humping bluey along the track--stoney-broke: sold up by the bank and only just beginning now to find out what Australia's worth.'

'That's what I said--you are just beginning. Roughing it has made a splendid man of you, Colin: and who would ever believe that you are four years older than I am. Colin, you ought to get married.'

'The Upper Leura is no place for the sort of wife I want,' he returned shortly.

'I don't see that. It isn't as if you were going to stop there always.

When you're rich enough you can put on a manager. You've got an enormous piece of pretty good country, haven't you?'

'One thousand square miles--and a lot more to be got for the taking--mostly fair cattle pasture--now that we're going in for Artesian bores. But it means capital, sinking wells three thousand feet and more. It'll be three or four years at least before I can see a trip to Europe--doing the thing in the way I mean to do it.'

'Must you go to Europe for a wife? Aren't Australian girls good enough?'

'I've always meant to try for the best. You taught me that, Joan, I shall follow your example. You were an Australian girl.'

Mrs Gildea's face saddened. 'Well,' was all she said.

'You see,' he went on, and the eyes took their narrow concentrated look and suddenly blazed out as he straightened himself against the veranda post, 'I know something of what marriage in the back block means: and I've studied women--don't laugh--I mean theoretically--from books. I've read history--always managed a couple of volumes or so in my swag--nights and nights, by the light of a fat lamp and a camp fire.

I've studied the women of great times--ancient and modern--they're always the same--and I've remarked the type of woman that's got grit--capacity for fine things--You understand all that as well as I do, Joan. Look at the women of the French Revolution for one instance--the aristocrats, you know--well, I've realised that it takes blood and breeding and tradition behind to carry a woman to the block with a sure step and a proud smile ...' Suddenly, he became aware of Joan's gaze, half surprised, wholly interested.... He reddened and pulled himself up gruffly.

'Sentimental rot, d'ye call it?'

'No, Colin, I believe in all that and so do you.'

'Blood and breeding and tradition--all the grand stuff that's been grown in them on the n.o.bLESSE OBLIGE principle--self-respect, courage, dignity--the stuff that gives staying power as well as the fire for making good s.p.u.n.k.... Not that I'd put a pure-blood racer to haul up logs for an iron-bark fence: any more than I'd set out to plant an English lady of that sort to rough it on the Leura.'

'Well, why not? Do you want your wife to be like a canary in a cage?'

'You know I don't hold with gilded cages and spoiling a woman who is there to be your mate. But all the same, I shan't look out for MY wife until I can afford to give her as good a show as she'd be likely to have if the stopped at home. You see, a real woman must be a sportsman in her way of taking life as much as a man, and I maintain as a general proposition that it's the English lady--even one of your sneered-at ”Lady Clara Vere de Vere” lot who makes the best front against battle, murder, and sudden death--if it has to come to that.... Just because,'

he went on, 'though she might have been brought up in a castle and never have done a hand's turn that could be done for her, she's still got in her veins the blood of fighting ancestors--men who were ready to lay down their lives for G.o.d and King and country and their women's honour--and of women too who'd maybe held the stronghold that had been their husband's reward, and kept the flag flying, when to fail or flinch meant death or worse.... Why, look at your Lady Nithisdales and your Lady Russells and your Maria Theresas....'

'And your Joan of Arc--who was a peasant girl--and your Charlotte Corday....'

'Oh, you beat me there.... And I wasn't intending to fire off a speech anyway.... And anyway, Joan, its awful cheek to think I could ever get the sort of wife I want, but if I can't, I won't have one at all....

I'll have my money's worth. Romance--Ideals--something more LIFTING than beef and mutton and cutting a bigger dash than your neighbour....

See?'

He broke off with a laugh, and the wonderfully vivid light that came into his blue eyes made him look like an ardent youth.

'And you a democrat!' jeered Mrs Gildea. 'You, a champion of the people's rights; you, an Imperialist in the broadest sense of the term!

Oh, I really must put you into one of my articles as a certain type of modern Australian. In fact, Colin, that's what I wanted to talk to you about.'

'All right, fire away. We'll drop the marriage question.'

'To be resumed later.' A quizzical look pa.s.sed over Mrs Gildea's mouth, and then, 'Oh, what a pity!' she muttered to herself.

'What's a pity?'