said Jonah.

"We won't discuss my mother, if you please," said Clara, and they both
fell silent.

They had reached the end of Cremorne Point, a spur of rock running into
the harbour. Clara ran forward with a cry of pleasure, her troubles
forgotten as she saw the harbour lying like a map at her feet. The
opposite shore curved into miniature bays, with the spires and towers
of the city etched on a filmy blue sky. The mass of bricks and mortar
in front was Paddington and Woollahra, leafless and dusty where they
had trampled the trees and green grass beneath their feet; the streets
cut like furrows in a field of brick. As the eye travelled eastward
from Double Bay to South Head the red roofs became scarcer, alternating
with clumps of sombre foliage. Clara looked at the scene with parted
lips as she listened to music. This frank delight in scenery had
amused Jonah at first. It was part of a woman's delight in the pretty
and useless. But, as his eyes had become accustomed to the view, he
had begun to understand. There was no scenery in Cardigan Street, and
he had been too busy in later years to give more than a hasty glance at
the harbour. There was no money in it.

From where they sat they could see a fleet of tramps and cargo-boats
lying at anchor on their right. Jonah examined them attentively, and
then his eyes turned to the city, piled massively in the sunlight,
studded with spires and towers and tall chimneys belching smoke into
the upper air. It was this city that had given him life on bitter
terms, a misshapen and neglected street-arab, scouring the streets for
food, of less account than a stray dog.

His eye softened as he looked again at the water. As the safest place
for their excursions they had picked by chance on the harbour with its
fleet of steamers that threaded every bay and cove, and little by
little, in the exaltation of the senses following his love for this
woman, the swish of the water slipping past the bows, the panorama of
rock and sandy beach, and the salt smell of the sea were for ever part
of this strange, emotional condition where reality and dream blended
without visible jar or shock.

He turned and looked at the woman beside him. She was silent, looking
seaward. He stared at her profile, cut like a cameo, with intense
satisfaction. The low, straight forehead, the straight nose, the full
curving chin, satisfied his eye like a carved statue. About her ear,
exquisitely small