wo met in the vestibule as they emerged respectively from the
ladies' and gentlemen's cloak-room. Both held back to allow certain
Members of the Ministry to enter the drawing-room before them, which
gave opportunity for an interchange of greetings.

'Well!' both said at once, and the tones in which the monosyllable was
uttered and the glances accompanying it held volumes of hidden meaning.
'I haven't seen you since the Governor arrived,' Joan went on. 'Where
have you been all these three weeks?'

'At Alexandra City, close on the desert, where they bored for water and
struck ready-made gas--the whole place now is lighted with it. If you
like, I'll give you material for a first-rate article upon an uncommon
phenomenon of Nature.'

'Thank you. I shall be grateful. Colin'--hesitatingly, 'I did think
you'd have come and looked after an old friend at the big Show in the
Botanical Gardens when the Governor made his State Entry.'

'State Entry! Good Lord! Sir Luke Tallant has got a bit too much red
tape and too many airs about him to suit the Leichardt'stonians.'

'You WERE there, then?'

'Started for Alexandra City that afternoon.'

'But you saw--Colin did you see--the Tallants and--their party?

His face changed: it looked positively angry, and his jaw under the
neatly trimmed, sandy beard, protruded determinedly. But at that moment
a footman came towards them, and Mrs Gildea was handed on to an
imposing butler and ushered through a wide palm-screened doorway into
the large inner hall which had a gallery round it and the big staircase
at one end. Joan saw that the room, formerly stiffly furnished and used
chiefly as a ballroom, had been transmogrified with comfortable lounge
chairs and sofas, beautiful embroideries, screens, a spinet and many
flowers and books into a delightful general sitting-room. It seemed
quite full--mostly of official Leichardt'stonians. Joan looked for the
new Governor and his wife, or at least for Lady Biddy, but none of them
had yet put in an appearance. A handsome, fair-moustachioed young
aide-de-camp, looking very smart in his evening uniform with white
lapels, was fluttering round, his dinner list in his hand, and
introducing people who already knew each other. He looked distinctly
worried, so did the private secretary--sallow-faced, of a clerkish
type, and obviously without social qualifications--who was also
wandering round and trying ineffectively to do the right thing. The
aide-de-camp