IS like you.'

'Oh, you don't know me--now.'

'Don't I! Well, your husband has given me the chance of knowing
you--better--and I warn you that I shall not scruple to avail myself of
the opportunity.'

She shook her head dubiously. 'Give me a light.'

He stooped and lit his own cigarette, then, bending, held its tip to
her. They both inhaled a few whiffs in silence. Presently, he said:

'I find it difficult to understand McKeith.'

'Don't try. You wouldn't succeed. I observe,' she added, 'that you must
have become rather friendly at Tunumburra?'

'Oh, yes. I can generally get on with open-air men. Besides, I wanted
him to like me. I wanted him to ask me here.'

'Well--and what do you thing of it, now that you are here?'

'Great heavens! What do you imagine that I should think of it! The
whole thing seems to me the most ghastly blunder--the most horrible
anomaly. You--in these surroundings! Married to a man so entirely
beneath you, and with whom you don't get on at all.'

'You have no right to say that.'

'The thing is obvious; though you tried to carry it off before dinner.
Your manner to each other; the lack of courtesy and consideration in
him; his leaving you....'

'Stop,' she interrupted. 'There's one thing you MUST understand. I
don't mind what you say about yourself--I want to hear that--but I
can't allow you to criticise my husband.'

'I beg your pardon. It isn't easy in the conditions to preserve the
social conventions. I will try to obey you. At any rate, you allow me
to be frank about myself.... It was sweet of you to keep this--more
than I could have dared hope for.'

He fingered tenderly the cigarette case on her lap.

'I suppose I ought to have sent it back to you. But I didn't want to.
You see it was not like an engagement ring.'

'No, worse luck.'

'Why, worse luck?'

'The ring would have been the outward and visible sign of an inward and
spiritual bond. If you had been really engaged to me--formally,
officially engaged, you couldn't have thrown me over so easily.'

'I--throw you over! Is it quite fair to put it that way?'

'No, I admit that. Let us be honest with each other--this once.'

'This once--very well--but not at this moment. I daresay there will be
time for a talk by and by.'

'I wait your pleasure.'

'There are some things I should like to understand,' she went on,
'--about you--about me, it doesn't matter which. And, after all, I only
want to know about you out of