"What are you thinking of," she chattered. "We shall have some more of your ferocious poetry, I suppose. I notice that about you, Arty. Whenever you get into your blue fits you always pour out blood and thunder verses.

The bluer you are the more volcanic you get. When you have it really bad you simply breathe dynamite, barricades, brimstone, everything that is emphatic. What is it this time?"

He laughed. "Why won't you let a man stay blue when he feels like it?"

She did not seem to think an answer necessary, either to his question or her own. "Have you a match?" she went on. "Ah! There is one thing in which a man is superior to woman. He can generally get a light without running all over the house. That is so useful of him. It's his one good point. I can't imagine how any woman can tolerate a man who doesn't smoke. I suppose one gets used to it, though."

He laughed again, turning up the gas-jet he had lighted, which flickered in the puffs of wind that came off the water below. "I could tell you a good story about that."

"That is what I like, a good story. Gas is a nuisance. I wish we had electric lights. Sydney only wants two things to be perfect, never to rain and moonlight all the time. Why I declare! If there aren't Hero and Leander! Well, of all the spooniest, unsociable, selfish people, you two are the worst. You haven't even had the kindness to let us know you were in all the time, and you actually see Arty and me toiling away at the coffee without offering to help. I've given you up long ago, Josie, but I did expect better things of you, George."

While she had been speaking, pouring the boiling water into the coffee-pot meanwhile, Arty cutting lemons into slices, the two lovers discovered by the flickering gaslight got out of a hammock slung across the end of the verandah and came forward.

"You seemed to be getting along so well we didn't like to disturb you, Mrs. Stratton," explained George, shaking hands. He was bronzed and bright-eyed, not handsome but strong and kindly-looking; he had a kindly voice, too; he wore a white flannel boating costume under a dark cloth coat. Josie, also wore a sailor dress of dark blue with loose white collar and vest; a scarlet wrap covered her short curly hair; her skin was milkwhite and her features small and irregular. Josie and Connie could never be mistaken for anything but sisters, in spite of the eleven years between them. Only Josie was pretty and plastic and pa.s.sionless, and Connie was not pretty nor plastic nor pa.s.sionless. They were the contrast one sees so often in children kin-born of the summer and autumn of life.

"Don't tell me!" said Mrs. Stratton. "I know all about that."

"Connie knows," said Josie, putting her arms over her sister's shoulders --the younger was the taller--and drawing her face back. "Do you know, Arty, I daren't go into a room in a house I know without knocking. The lady has been married twelve years and when her husband is away he writes to her every day, and though they have quite big children they send them to bed and sit for hours in the same chair, billing and cooing. I've known them--"

"I wonder who they can be," interrupted Mrs. Stratton, twisting herself free, her face as red as Josie's shawl. "There's Nellie's voice. They'll be wondering what we're doing here. Do come along!" And seizing a tray of cups and saucers, on which she had placed the coffeepot and the saucer of sliced lemon, she beat a dignified retreat amid uproarious laughter.

Ned found himself in a narrow hall that ran along the side of the house at right angles to the verandah and the road. The floor was covered with oil-cloth; the walls were hung with curios, South Sea spears and masks, j.a.panese armour, boomerangs, nullahs, a mult.i.tude of quaint workings in wood and gra.s.s and beads. Against the wall facing the door was an umbrella stand and hat rack of polished wood, with a mirror in the centre. There were two pannelled doors to the left; a doorless stairway, leading downwards, and a large window to the right; at the end of the pa.s.sage a glazed door, with coloured panes. A gas jet burned in a frosted globe and seeing him look at this Stratton explained the contrivance for turning the light down to a mere dot which gave no gleam but could be turned up again in a second.

"My wife is enthusiastic about household invention," he concluded, smiling. "She thinks it a.s.sists in righting women's wrongs. Eh, Nellie?

The freed and victorious female will put her foot on abject man some day?

Eh?"

Nellie laughed again. She held the handle of the nearest door in one hand. Mr. Stratton had turned to take Ned's hat, apologising for neglecting to think of that before. Ned saw the girl's other hand move quickly up to where the gas bracket met the wall and then the light went out altogether. "That's for poking fun," he heard her say. The door slammed, a key turned in it and he heard her laughing on the other side.

"Larrikin!" shouted Stratton, boisterously. "Come out here and see what we'll do to you. She's always up to her tricks," he added, striking a match and turning the gas on again. "She is a fine girl. We are as fond of her as though she were one of the family. She is one of the family, for that matter."

Ned hardly believed his ears or his eyes, either. He had not seen Nellie like this before. She had been grave and rather stern. Only at the gate he had thought he detected in her voice a bitterness which answered well to his own bitter heartache; he had thought he saw on her face the convulsive suppression of intense emotion. Certainly this very day she had shown him the horrors of Sydney and taught him, as if by magic, the misery of living. Now, she laughed lightly and played a trick with the quickness of a thoughtless school girl. Besides, how did it happen that she was so at home in this house of well-to-do people, and so familiar with this man of a cultured cla.s.s? Ned did not express his thoughts in such phrases of course, but that was the effect of them. He had laughed, but he was still sad and sick at heart and somehow these pleasantries jarred on him. It looked as if there were some secret understanding certainly, some bond that he could not distinguish, between the girl of the people and this courteous gentleman. Nellie had told him simply that the Strattons were "interested in the Labour movement" and were very nice, but Stratton spoke of her as "one of the family" and she turned out his gas and locked one of his own doors in his face. If it was a secret society, well and good, no matter how desperate its plan. But why did they laugh and joke and play tricks? He was not in the humour. For the time his soul abhorred what seemed to him frippery. He sought intuitively to find relief in action and he began impatiently to look for it here.

"Hurry, Nellie!" cried Stratton. "Coffee's nearly ready."

"You won't touch me?" answered her merry voice.

"No, we'll forgive you this once, but look out for the next time."

She opened the door forthwith and stepped out quickly. Ned caught a glimpse of a large bedroom through the doorway. She had taken off her hat and gloves and smoothed the hair that lay on her neck in a heavy plait.

At the collar of the plain black dress that fell to her feet over the curving lines of her supple figure she had placed a red rose, half blown.

She was tall and straight and graceful, more than beautiful in her strong fresh womanhood, as much at home in such a house as this as in the wretched room where he had watched her sewing slop-clothes that morning.

His aching heart went out towards her in a burst of unspoken feeling which he did not know at the time to be Love.

"Mrs. Stratton always puts a flower for me. She loves roses." So she said to Ned, seeing him looking astonishedly at her. Then she slipped one hand inside the arm that Stratton bent towards her, and took hold of Ned's arm with the other. Stratton turned down the gas. Linked thus together the three went cautiously down the dim pa.s.sage hall-way, towards the gla.s.s door through one side of which coloured light came.

"Anybody particular here?" asked Nellie.

"That's a nice question," retorted Stratton. "Geisner is here, if you call him 'anybody particular.'"

"Geisner! Is he back again?" exclaimed the girl. Ned felt her hand clutch him nervously. A sudden repulsion to this Geisner shot through him. He pulled his arm from her grasp.

They had reached the end of the pa.s.sage, however, and she did not notice.

Stratton turned the handle and opened the door, held back the half-drawn curtain that hung on the further side and they pa.s.sed in. "Here we are,"

he cried. "Geisner says he recollects you, Nellie."

Ned could have described the room to the details if he had been struck blind that minute. It was a double room, long and low and not very broad, running the whole width of the house, for there were windows on two sides and French lights on another. The glazed door opened in the corner of the windowless side. Opposite were the French lights, the further one swung ajar and showing a lighted verandah beyond from which came a flutter of voices. Beyond still were dim points of light that he took at first for stars. Folding doors, now swung right back, divided the long linoleum-floored room into two apartments, a studio and a sitting-room.

The studio in which they stood was littered with things strange to him; an easel, bearing a half-finished drawing; a black-polished cabinet; a table-desk against the window, on it slips of paper thrown carelessly about, the ink-well open, a file full of letters, a handful of cigarettes, a tray of tobacco ash, a bespattered palette, pens, coloured crayons, a medley of things; a revolving office chair with a worn crimson footrug before it; a many-shelved gla.s.s case against the blank wall, crammed to overflowing with sh.e.l.ls and coral and strange gra.s.ses, with specimens of ore, with Chinese carvings, with curious lacquer-work; a large bra.s.s-bound portfolio stand; on the painted walls plaster-casts of hands and arms and feet, boxing gloves, fencing foils, a glaring tiger's head, a group of photographs; in the corner, a suit of antique armour stood sentinel over a heap of dumb-bells and Indian clubs.

In the sitting room beyond the folded doors, a soft coloured rug carpet lay loosely on the floor. There were easy chairs there and a red lounge that promised softness; a square cloth-covered table; a whatnot in the corner; fancy shelves; a pretty walnut-wood piano, gilt lined, the cover thrown back, laden with music; on the music-stool a woman's cloak was lying, on the piano a woman's cap. A great book-case reached from ceiling to floor, filled with books, its shelves fringed with some scalloped red stuff. Everywhere were nick-nacks in china, in gla.s.s, in terra-cotta, in carved woods, in ivory; photo frames; medallions. On the walls, bright with striped hangings, were some dainty pictures. Half concealed by the hangings was another door. Lying about on the table, here and there on low shelves, were more books. The ground-gla.s.s globes of the gaslights were covered with crimson shades. There was a subdued blaze of vivid colouring, of rich toned hues, of beautiful things loved and cherished, over all. Sitting on the edge of the table was the moustached man who smoked the wooden pipe. And turning round from the book-case, an open book in his hand, was the ugly little man. Ned felt that this was Geisner.

The ugly little man put down his book, and came forward holding out his hand. He smiled as he came. Ned was angered to see that when he smiled his face became wonderfully pleasant.

"Yes; I think we know one another, Miss Lawton," he said, meeting them on the uncarpeted floor.

"I am so glad you are here to-night," she replied, greeting him warmly, almost effusively. "I recollect you so well. And Ned will know you, too --Mr. Geisner, Mr. Hawkins." Ned felt his reluctantly extended hand enclosed in a strong friendly clasp.

"Hawkins is the Queenslander we were expecting," said Stratton cheerfully. "You will excuse my familiarity, won't you?" he added, laying his hand on Ned's shoulder. "We don't 'Mister' our friends much here. I think it sounds cold and distant; don't you?"

"We don't 'Mister' much where I come from," answered Ned. He felt at home already. The atmosphere of kindness in this place stole over him and prevented him thinking that it was too "swell" for him.

"I don't know Queensland much----," Geisner was beginning, when the farther verandah door was swung wide and the dark-haired little woman swept in, tray in hand, the train of her dress trailing behind her.

"I heard you, Nellie dear," she cried. "That unfeeling Josie was saying the cruellest things to me. I feel as red as red." Putting the tray down on the table she hurried to them, threw her plump bare arms round Nellie's neck and kissed her warmly on both cheeks. Then she drew back quickly and raised her finger threateningly. "Worrying again, Nellie, I can tell. My word! What with you and what with Arty I'm made thoroughly wretched. You mayn't think so to look at me, Mr. Hawkins," she rattled on, holding out her hand to Ned; "but it is so. You see I know you. I heard Nellie introducing you. That husband of mine must leave all conventionalism to his guests, it seems. You're incorrigible, Harry."

There was a welcome in her every word and look. She put him on a friendly footing at once.

"You have enough conventionalism to-night for us both, my fine lady,"

twitted Stratton, pinching her arm.

"Stop that! Stop, this minute! Nellie, hit him for me. Mr. Hawkins, this is Bohemia. You do as you like. You say what you like. You are welcome to-night for Nellie's sake. You will be welcome always because I like your looks. I do, Harry, so there. And I'm going to call you Ned because Nellie always does. Oh! I forgot--Mr. Hawkins, Mr. Ford. Mr. Ford thinks he can cartoon. I don't know what you think you can do. And now, everybody, come to coffee."

The others came in from the verandah, still laughing, whereat Mrs.

Stratton flushed red again and denounced Josie and George for hiding away, then introduced them and Arty to Ned. There was a babel of conversation for awhile, Josie and George talking of their boating, Connie and Ford of the opera, Stratton and Arty of a picture they had seen that evening. Geisner sat by Ned and Nellie, the three chatting of the beauty of Sydney harbour, the little man waxing indignant at the vandalism which the naval authorities were perpetrating on Garden Island.

Mrs. Stratton, all the time, attended energetically to her coffee-pot: Finally she served them all, in small green-patterned china cups, with strong black coffee guiltless of milk, in each cup a slice of lemon floating, in each saucer a biscuit.

"I hope you like your coffee, Ned," she exclaimed, a moment after. "I forgot to ask you. I'm always forgetting to ask newcomers. You see all the 'regulars' like it this way."

"I've never tasted it this way before," answered Ned. "I suppose liking it's a habit, like smoking. I think I'll try it."

She nodded, being engaged in slowly sipping her own. Geisner looked at Ned keenly. There was silence for a little while, broken only by the clatter of cups and an occasional observation. From outside came the ceaseless lap-lap-lapping of the waves, as if rain water was gurgling down from the roof.

CHAPTER VI.

"WE HAVE SEEN THE DRY BONES BECOME MEN."