"Since twenty past two," replied Jonah.

"The impudence of some people is incredible," she said. "I've just lost a pupil and a guinea a quarter--it's the same thing. The mother thought I should buy the music for the child out of the guinea. That means a hat and a pair of gloves or a pair of boots less through no fault of my own. You don't seem very sympathetic," she cried, looking sharply at Jonah.

"I ain't," said Jonah, calmly.

"Well, I must say you don't pick your words. A guinea may be nothing to you, but it means a great deal to me."

"It ain't that," said Jonah, "but I hate the thought of yer bein' at the beck an' call of people who ain't fit to clean yer boots. Ye're like a kid 'oldin' its finger in the fire an' yellin' with pain.

There's no need fer yer to do it. I've offered ter make yer cashier in the shop at two pounds a week, if yer'd put yer pride in yer pocket."

"And throw a poor girl out of work to step into her shoes."

"Nuthin' of the sort, as I told yer. She's been threatenin' fer months to git married, but it 'urts 'er to give up a good billet an' live on three pounds a week. Yer'd do the bloke a kindness, if yer made me give 'er the sack."

"It's no use. My mother wouldn't listen to it. For years she's half starved herself to keep me out of a shop. She can never forget that her people in England are gentry."

"I don't know much about gentry, but I could teach them an' yer mother some common sense," said Jonah.

"We won't discuss my mother, if you please," said Clara, and they both fell silent.

They had reached the end of Cremorne Point, a spur of rock running into the harbour. Clara ran forward with a cry of pleasure, her troubles forgotten as she saw the harbour lying like a map at her feet. The opposite shore curved into miniature bays, with the spires and towers of the city etched on a filmy blue sky. The mass of bricks and mortar in front was Paddington and Woollahra, leafless and dusty where they had trampled the trees and green grass beneath their feet; the streets cut like furrows in a field of brick. As the eye travelled eastward from Double Bay to South Head the red roofs became scarcer, alternating with clumps of sombre foliage. Clara looked at the scene with parted lips as she listened to music. This frank delight in scenery had amused Jonah at first. It was part of a woman's delight in the pretty and useless. But, as his eyes had become accustomed to the view, he had begun to understand. There was no scenery in Cardigan Street, and he had been too busy in later years to give more than a hasty glance at the harbour. There was no money in it.

From where they sat they could see a fleet of tramps and cargo-boats lying at anchor on their right. Jonah examined them attentively, and then his eyes turned to the city, piled massively in the sunlight, studded with spires and towers and tall chimneys belching smoke into the upper air. It was this city that had given him life on bitter terms, a misshapen and neglected street-arab, scouring the streets for food, of less account than a stray dog.

His eye softened as he looked again at the water. As the safest place for their excursions they had picked by chance on the harbour with its fleet of steamers that threaded every bay and cove, and little by little, in the exaltation of the senses following his love for this woman, the swish of the water slipping past the bows, the panorama of rock and sandy beach, and the salt smell of the sea were for ever part of this strange, emotional condition where reality and dream blended without visible jar or shock.

He turned and looked at the woman beside him. She was silent, looking seaward. He stared at her profile, cut like a cameo, with intense satisfaction. The low, straight forehead, the straight nose, the full curving chin, satisfied his eye like a carved statue. About her ear, exquisitely small and delicate, the wind had blown a fluff of loose hair, and on this insignificant detail his eye dwelt with rapture.

This woman's face pleased him like music. And as he looked, all his desires were melted and confounded in a wave of tenderness, caressing and devotional, the complete surrender of strength to weakness. He wanted to take her in his arms, and dared not even touch her hand.

There had been no talk of love between them, and she had kept him at a distance with her air of distinction and superficial refinements. She seemed to spread a silken barrier between them that exasperated and entranced him. Some identity in his sensations puzzled him, and as he looked, with a flash he was in Cardigan Street again, stooping over his child with a strange sensation in his heart, learning his first lesson in pity and infinite tenderness. Another moment and he would have taken her in his arms. Instead of that, he said "I'm putting that line of patent leather pumps in the catalogue at seven and elevenpence, post free."

Instantly Clara became attentive.

"You mean those with the buckles and straps? They'll go like hot cakes!"

"They ought to," said Jonah, dryly. "Post free brings them a shade below cost price."

"A shade below cost?" said Clara in surprise. "I thought you bought them at seven and six?"

"So I do," replied Jonah, "but add twelve per cent for working expenses, an' where's the profit? Packard's manager puts them in the window at eight an' six, an' wonders why they don't sell. His girls come straight from the factory and buy them off me. They're the sort I want--waitresses, dressmakers, shop-hands, bits of girls that go without their meals to doll themselves up. They want the cheapest they can get, an' they're always buying."

And at once they plunged into a discussion on the business of the Silver Shoe. Clara always listened with fascination to the details of buying and selling. Novelettes left her cold, but the devices to attract customers, the lines that were sold at a loss for advertisement, the history of the famous Silver Shoe that Jonah sold in thousands at a halfpenny a pair profit, astonished her like a fairy-tale that happened to be real.

One day, while shopping at Jordan's mammoth cash store, her ear had caught the repeated clink of metal, and turning her head, she stood on the stairs, thunderstruck. She saw a square room lit with electric bulbs in broad daylight. It was the terminus of a multitude of shining brass tubes leading from counters the length of a street away, and, with an incessant popping, the tubes dropped a cascade of gold and silver before the cashiers, silent and absorbed in this river of coin.

She felt that she was looking at the heart of this huge machine for drawing money from the pockets of the multitude. The "Silver Shoe", that poured a stream of golden coins into the pockets of the hunchback, fascinated her in a like manner.

They had talked for half an hour, intent on figures which Jonah dotted on the back of an envelope, when they were surprised by a sudden change in the light. The sun was low in the sky, dipping to the horizon, where its motion seemed more rapid, as if it had gathered speed in the descent. The sudden heat had thrown a haze over the sky, and the city with its spires and towers was transformed. The buildings floated in a liquid veil with the unreality of things seen in a dream. The rays of the sun, filtered through bars of crystal cloud, fell not crimson nor amber nor gold, but with the mystic radiance of liquid pearls, touching the familiar scene with Eastern magic. In the silvery light a dome reared its head that might have belonged to an Eastern mosque with a muezzin calling the faithful to prayers. Minarets glistered, remote and ethereal, and tall spires lifted themselves like arrows in flight.

On the left lay low hills softly outlined against the pearly sky; hills of fairyland that might dissolve and disappear with the falling night; hills on the borderland of fantasy and old romance.

And as they watched, surprised out of themselves by this magic play of light, the sun's rim dipped below the skyline, a level lake of blood, and the fantastic city melted like a dream. The pearly haze was withdrawn like a net of gossamer, and the magic city had vanished at a touch. The familiar towers and spires of Sydney reappeared, silhouetted against the amber rim of night; the hills, robbed of their pearly glamour, huddled beneath a belt of leaden cloud; the harbour waters lay fiat and grey like a sheet of polished metal; light clouds were pacing in from the sea.

They stared across the water, silent and thoughtful, touched for a moment with the glamour of a dream. The sound of a cornet, prolonged into a wail, reached them from the deck of a Manly steamer. At intervals the full strength of the band, cheerful and vulgar, was carried by a gust of wind to their ears.

"Oh, I would like to hear some music!" cried Clara. "Something slow and solemn, a dirge for the dying day."

Jonah turned and looked at her curiously, surprised by the gush of emotion in her voice. He started to speak, and hesitated. Then the words came with a rush.

"I could give yer a tune meself, but I suppose yer'd poke borak."

"Give me a tune? I never knew you could sing," said Clara, in surprise.

"Sing!" said Jonah, in scorn. "I can beat any singin' w'en I'm in good nick."

"Whatever do you mean?" said Clara. She was surprised to see that the habitual shrewd look had gone out of his eyes. He looked half ashamed and defiant.

"Yer remember w'en I first met yer in the shop I mentioned that I could do a bit with the mouth-organ?"

"The mouth-organ?" said Clara, smiling. "I thought only boys amused themselves with that."

"No fear!" cried Jonah. "I 'eard a bloke at the 'Tiv.' play a fair treat. That's 'ow I come to git this instrument," and he tapped something in his breast pocket. "Kramer's 'ad to send 'ome for it, an'

I only got it this afternoon. I've bin dyin' to 'ave a go at it, but I always wait till I git the place to meself. It wouldn't do for the 'ands to see the boss playin' the mouth-organ."

He took the instrument out of his pocket, and handed it to Clara with the pride of a fiddler showing his Strad. Clara looked carelessly at the flat row of tubes cased in nickel-silver.

"Exhibition concert organ with forty reeds," said Jonah. Again Clara looked at the instrument with a slightly disdainful air, as an organist would look at a penny whistle.

"Well, play something," she said with a smile.

Jonah breathed slowly into the reeds, up and down the scale, testing the compass of the instrument. It was full and rich, unlike any that she had heard in the streets. Presently he struck into a popular ballad from the music-hall, holding the organ to his mouth with the left hand. With his right he covered the pipes to control the volume of sound as a pianist uses the pedals. When he had finished, Clara smiled in encouragement, with a secret feeling that he was making himself ridiculous. She looked across the water, wishing he would put the thing away and stop this absurd exhibition. But Jonah had warmed up to his work. He was back in Cardigan Street again, when the Push marched through the streets with him in the lead, playing tunes that he had learned at the music-halls.

In five minutes Clara's uneasiness had vanished, and she was listening to the music with a dreamy languor quite foreign to her usual composure. Her mind was filled with the fantastic splendour of the sunset; the fresh salt air had acted like a drug; and the sounds breathed into the reeds made her nerves vibrate like strings. Strange, lawless thoughts floated in her mind. The world was meant for love, and passionate sadness, and breaking hearts that healed at the glance of an eye. And as her ear followed the tune, her eyes were drawn with an irresistible movement to the musician. She found him staring at her with a magnetic look in his eyes.

He was no longer ridiculous. The large head, wedged beneath the shoulders, the projecting hump, monstrous and inhuman, and the music breathed into the reeds set him apart as a sinister, uncanny being.

She frowned in an effort to think what the strange figure reminded her of, and suddenly she remembered. It was the god Pan, the goat-footed lord of rivers and woods, sitting beside her, who blew into his pipes and stirred the blood of men and women to frenzies of joy and fear.

There was fear and exultation in her heart. A pagan voluptuousness spread through her limbs. Jonah paused for a moment, and then broke into the pick of his repertory. And Clara listened, hypnotized by the sounds, her brain mechanically fitting the words to the tune:

Come to me, sweet Marie, sweet Marie, come to me!

Not because your face is fair, love, to see; But your soul, so pure and sweet, Makes my happiness complete, Makes me falter at your feet, sweet Marie.

The vulgar, insipid words rang as plainly in her ears as if a voice were singing them. Jonah stopped playing, and stared at her with a curious glitter in his eyes. She felt, in a dazed, dreamy fashion, that this was the hunchback's declaration of love. The hurdy-gurdy tune and the unsung words had acted like a spell. For a space of seconds she gazed with a fixed look at Jonah, waiting for him to move or speak. She seemed to be slipping down a precipice without the power or desire to resist. Then, like a fit of giddiness, the sensation passed. She stumbled to her feet and ran wildly down the rocky path to the wharf where the ferry-boat, glittering with electric lights, like a gigantic firefly, was waiting at the jetty.

CHAPTER 20

MRS PARTRIDGE MINDS THE SHOP

Chook caught the last tram home, and found Pinkey asleep in bed with a novelette in her hand. She had fallen asleep reading it. The noise of Chook's entry roused her, and she stared at him, uncertain of the hour.