life he understood why men gave up their pals and the freedom of
the streets for a woman. Mrs Partridge saw the look in his eyes, and
wished she were twenty years younger. When Pinkey got her hat and
proposed a walk, Chook, softened by his novel emotions, called out
"Good night, boss!"

For a wonder, Partridge looked up from his paper and grunted "Night!"

"There now," cried Mrs Partridge, delighted, "William wouldn't say that
to everybody, would you, William? Call again any time you like, an'
'e'll be in a better temper."

When they reached the park, they sat on a seat facing the asphalt path.
Near them was another pair, the donah, with a hat like a tea-tray,
nursing her bloke's head in her lap as he lay full length along the
seat. And they exchanged caresses with a royal indifference to the
people who were sauntering along the paths. But, without knowing why,
Chook and Pinkey sat as far apart as if they had freshly studied a book
on etiquette. For to Chook this frail girl with the bronze hair and
shabby clothes was no longer a mere donah, but a laborious housewife
and a potential mother of children; and to Pinkey this was a new Chook,
who kept his hands to himself, and looked at her with eyes that made
her forget she was a poor factory girl.

Chook looked idly at the stars, remote and lofty, strewn like sand
across the sky, and wondered at one that gleamed and glowed as he
watched. A song of the music-hall about eyes and stars came into his
head. He looked steadily into Pinkey's eyes, darkened by the broad
brim of her hat, and could see no resemblance, for he was no poet. And
as he looked, he forgot the stars in an intense desire to know the
intimate details of her life--the mechanical, monotonous habits that
fill the day from morning till night, and yet are too trivial to tell.
He asked some questions about Packard's factory where she worked, and
Pinkey's tongue ran on wheels when she found a sympathetic listener.
Apart from the boot factory, the great events of her life had been the
death of her mother, her father's second marriage, and the night of her
elder sister, Lil, who had gone to the bad. She blamed her stepmother
for that. Lil had acted like a fool, and Mrs Partridge, with her
insatiable greed for gossip, had gathered hints and rumours from the
four corners of Sydney, and Lil had bolted rather than argue it out
with her father. That and the death of Pinkey's mother had soured his
temper, and