get might have done well on the operatic
stage.

Yet it had a TIMBRE, a peculiar, devil-may-care passion which produced
a very thrilling effect upon her audience. She got up when she had
finished in a dead silence and was half-way across the room before the
applause burst out. There was a little rush of men towards her.

'Beats Zelie de Lussan and runs Calve hard,' said the Premier who had
made more than one trip to England and considered himself an authority
in the matter.

Bridget skimmed through the groups of admirers, stopping to murmur
something to Lady Tallant who had met her half way; then stopped with
hands before her like a meek schoolgirl, in front of Mrs Gildea and
Colin McKeith--he almost the only man who had made no movement towards
her. Bridget sank into her former seat.

'The last time I sang that was at a Factory Girls' entertainment at
Poplar,' she said... 'You should have seen them, Joan: they stood up
and tried to sing in chorus and some of them came on to the platform
and danced.... Mr McKeith you look at me as if I had been doing
something desperately improper. Don't you like the music of CARMEN?'

Colin was staring at her dazedly.

'It seemed to me a kind of witchcraft,' he said.... 'I should think you
might go on the stage and make a fortune like Melba.'

She laughed. 'Why my voice is a very poor thing. And besides, I could
never depend upon it.'

'Everything just how you feel at the time, eh?' he said. 'You wouldn't
care what you did if you had a mind to do it.'

'No,' she answered. 'I shouldn't care in the least what I did if I had
a mind to do it.'

There was the faintest mimicry of his half Scotch, half Australian
accent in her voice--a little husky, with now and then unsuspected
modulations. She looked at him and the gleam in her eyes and her
strange smile made him stare at her in a sort of fascination. Joan knew
those tricks of hers and knew that they boded mischief. She got up at
the moment saying that people were going and that she must bid Lady
Tallant good-night.

Then the Premier's wife came up shyly; she wanted to thank Lady Bridget
for her singing. It had been as good as the Opera--They sometimes had
good opera companies in Leichardt's Town, etcetera, etcetera.

Lady Bridget made the prettiest curtsey, which bewildered the Premier's
wife and gave her food for speculation as to the manners and customs of
the British aristocracy. She had always understood you only curtsie