e to make out is whether she did care--does
care--for that chap. You see, that would make a difference.'

'A difference! How? What do you mean?'

'I mean that I don't believe I should feel about her as I do if I
wasn't going to meet her. Look here, Joan, you've as good as told
me--and if you hadn't, I'd be pretty thick-headed not to have put two
and two together--that the Luke of her letters is Sir Luke Tallant, our
new Governor. Well, if she was staying with him in London, and his wife
is a friend of hers, why shouldn't she come and stay with them out
here?'

The idea had already presented itself to Mrs Gildea, but she tried not
to show that it had, or that there had ever been any question of the
sort in Bridget's mind. Colin had not read the opening sheet of her
letter.

'I suppose more unlikely things than that have happened,' Joan said
neutrally. 'But really, Colin,' she went on with strenuous emphasis, 'I
can't understand this phase of you. You--a hard-headed Bushman, to be
dreaming romantic dreams and falling all of a sudden over head and ears
in love with--with a figment of your imagination--just because you
happen to have read by mistake some sentimental outpourings of a woman
you know nothing about and who would never forgive me if she knew I'd
let you see her letter.'

'She won't know--You have my word of honour that I'll never give you
away over that letter--not under ANY circumstances, so you can set your
mind at rest on that score, Joan. And as to my falling in love with--a
figment of my own imagination'--he spat the words out savagely--'we'll
see how far your remark is justified when She does come out and I
recognise her--as I am convinced I shall do directly I set eyes on Her.'

Mrs Gildea burst into rather hysterical laughter, which manifestly
offended Colin McKeith.

'We'll drop the subject, please,' he said stiffly. 'And now, Mrs
Gildea, I'm quite at your service for any information you desire about
the Big Bight country and the probability of a Japanese invasion so
soon as our future Commonwealth comes to crucial loggerheads with the
Eastern Powers on the question of a strictly White Australia.'

After that Colin pointedly abstained from allusion to the Ideal Wife
and to Joan Gildea's Typewriting-Correspondent, as he had called her.
He was very busy himself at this time in connection with a threatened
labour strike that was agitating sheep and cattle owners of the Leura
District. Likewise wi