l my storekeeper comes
in. Go and camp in the travellers' hut."

Instead of a thank-you the man smiled--but only slightly--and shook his
iron-grey head--but almost imperceptibly. Moya perceived it, however,
and could not imagine why Rigden tolerated a demeanour which had struck
her as insolent from the very first. She glanced from one man to the
other. The smile broadened on the very unpleasant face of the tramp,
making it wholly evil in the lady's eyes. So far from dismissing him,
however, Rigden rose.

"Excuse me a few minutes," he said, not only briefly, but without even
looking at Moya; and with a word to the interloper he led the way to the
station store. This was one of the many independent buildings, and not
the least substantial. The tramp followed Rigden, and in another moment
a particularly solid door had closed behind the pair.

Moya felt at once hurt, aggrieved, and ashamed of her readiness to
entertain any such feelings. But shame did not remove them. It was their
first day together for two interminable months, and the afternoon was to
have been their very very own. That was the recognised arrangement, and
surely it was not too much to expect when one had come five hundred
miles in the heat of January (most of them by coach) to see one's
_fiance_ in one's future home. This afternoon, at least, they might have
had to themselves. It should have been held inviolate. Yet he could
desert her for the first uncleanly sundowner who came along! After first
telling the man to wait, he must needs show his strength by giving in
and attending to the creature himself, his devotion by leaving her alone
on a verandah without another soul in sight or hearing! It might only be
for the few minutes mentioned with such off-hand coolness. The slight
was just the same.

Such was the first rush of this young lady's injured feelings and too
readily embittered thoughts. They were more bitter, however, in form
than in essence, for the notorious temper of the Australian Bethunes was
seldom permitted a perfectly direct expression. They preferred the
oblique ways of irony and sarcasm, and their minds ran in those curves.
A little bitterness was in the blood, and Moya could not help being a
Bethune.

But she had finer qualities than were rife--or at all events
conspicuous--in the rank and file of her distinguished family. She had
the quality of essential sweetness which excited their humorous
contempt, and she was miraculously free