jealously.

"Ter tell the truth, I do," said Jonah. "Next ter yerself, she's got
the best 'ead fer business of any woman I know."

"I don't agree with it at all," said Clara. "You're the brains of the
"Silver Shoe", and another man's ideas will clash with yours."

"No fear!" said Jonah. "I've got 'im tied down in black and white by
my solicitors."

Clara ran her eye over the typewritten document, reading some of the
items aloud.

"'Turn over the stock three times a year'! What does that mean?" And
she listened while Jonah explained, the position of pupil and tutor
suddenly reversed.

"'Ten and a half per cent bonus, in addition to his salary, if he shows
an increase on last year's sales.'"

"'Net profits on the departments not to exceed twenty-five per cent.,'"
read Clara in amazement. "Why, I should have thought the more profit
he made, the better for you."

"No fear," said Jonah, with a grin; "I can't 'ave a man puttin' up the
price of the Silver Shoe with his eye on his bonus."

Then a long discussion followed that lasted till nightfall. As the
night promised to be fine, Jonah persuaded her to take tea at a
dilapidated refreshment-room, halfway to the jetty, and they continued
the discussion over cups of discoloured water and stale cakes. When
they reached the Point again the moon was rising clear in the sky, and
they sat and watched in silence the gradual illumination of the
harbour. The wind had dropped, and tiny ripples alone broke the
surface of the water. On the opposite shore the beaches lay obscured
in the faint light of the moon, growing momently stronger, the land and
water melted and confounded together in the grey light. The lesser
stars fled at the slow approach of the moon, and in an hour she floated
alone in the sky, save for the larger planets, Hooding the deep abysses
of the night with a gleam of silver, tender and caressing that softened
the angles and blotted details in brooding shadows.

Overhead curved the arch of night, a deep, flawless blue with velvety
depths, pale and diluted with light as it touched the skyline. On the
right, in the farther distance, Circular Quay flashed with the gleam of
electric arcs, each contracted into a star of four points. And they
glittered on the waterline like clustered gems without visible setting.
A fainter glow marked the packed suburbs of the east; and then the
lamps, flung like jewels in the night, picked out the line of shore to
Ros