except miles and miles of stark
staring gum trees and black, smelling GIDGEE* and dead-finish
scrub--and never the glimpse of a woman--not counting black gins--to
remind him he once had a mother and might have a wife. Well, can't you
see that his only chance of not growing into a rotten HATTER* is to
start picturing in his imagination all the beautiful things he's ever
seen or read about--the sort of lady-wife he hopes to have some day and
in making such a companion of her that she seems to him as real as the
stars and far more real than the gum trees. So as he'll keep saying to
her always in his thoughts: "I'll keep myself sound and wholesome for
your sake. I'll never forget that I'm a gentleman, so as YOU won't
shrink away from me in horror if ever I've the luck to come across YOU
down here on this Earth."'

[*Gidgee--Colloquial pronunciation of gidia, an Australian tree.]

[*Hatter--A white man who prefers the society of blacks.]

He stopped, fitted another cigarette from the copper case into the
holder and, before beginning upon it, said without looking at Mrs
Gildea:

'I wouldn't spout like that to anybody but you, Joan. My word! Though I
see by your writing that you've a fair notion of how this cursed, grim,
glorious old Bush can play the deuce with a chap--body and brain and
soul--if he doesn't wear the right kind of talisman to safeguard
himself.'

'Yes--I understand. And your talisman, Colin? What was your picture of
the lady-wife? Describe your Ideal and I'll tell you if SHE is the
least bit like it.'

McKeith smoked ruminatively for a few moments, his eyes narrowed. The
lines in his forehead and round his mouth showed plainly. He was gazing
out into space, far beyond the sun-flecked Leichardt River and the
Botanical Gardens, and the glaring city and the range of distant hills
on the horizon.

'Well,' he said at last, slowly, 'you can laugh at me if you like, but
I'll tell you how I see HER. She is tall--got a presence, so that if
SHE'S there, you'd know it and everybody else would know it, no matter
how many other women there might be in the place. Most big men take to
their opposites. Now, though I'm a big man I've never fancied a snippet
of a girl. Five foot seven of height is my measure of a woman, and a
good ten stone in the saddle--What are you laughing at, Joan? I'm out
there, I suppose?'

Mrs Gildea controlled her muscles.

'No, no, not in the least. In fact, your description fits the Idea