G. B. Lancaster

“ The huge laugh bellowed out again. "Come along. Bailey will put your things together, and you can fix it with him all right."
They took possession of him, the two tall, healthy, handsome young things; and it was only among the violet dusks of that evening, with the scents of baronia and jasmine and all the haunting damp bush odours drawn warmly about him on the wide low stone verandah, that Tallentyre, who had slept most of the afternoon in a long room opening low windows to a garden that met the bush, screwed up his courage to the attack again. ”

“ The struggle to answer brought sweat to his face and palms, and power came slowly back with a tearing sense of grief, as though he had failed to respond to some great need—some maiden need which could not be spoken, which he could not clearly meet or fathom. Water dripped on him now; the shadow of a big wattle-tree was over him, and the tang of whisky in his mouth, and Donald Senior's brown, jovial face very near. He was talking, but for a while Tallentyre could not piece out the words. Hearing cleared at last. ”

“ But on Christmas Day he would speak to Claudia, and after that—— Frowning, he watched the white moths busy in the white nicotine flowers, and listened to Dolly whistling as she used the hose down the garden. The grateful odour of drenched earth and flowers and blossoming shrubs after heat blew up to him. And then came Dolly, flicking wet finger-tips at him, and dropping down on the verandah-edge to demand a cigarette.
"Don's gone to the township," she said, her roguish face bobbing into the match-light. "Dear man, he will have his little fancies. But he's the best ever." ”

“ Dolly sang snatches of songs and kicked her heels on the gravel. She seemed to be considering something. Then—
"Claudia's lover is coming to-morrow. Beastly nuisance!" she said.
"Her what?"
"Lover. Man who loves, you know." Her voice was jesting, but she glanced at Tallentyre sharply. And he sat rigid, with the sensation that every nerve of his body had been pulled up to a tenseness that dumbed him. Dolly smoked, speaking between slow puffs.
"I believe she's going to take him this time. The amount of energy—that man has spent—over her—would turn a water-mill. ”

“ Isn't that true?"
"Yes," said Tallentyre.
"Then have done with shams," cried Dolly, and the two never saw how she was trembling. "If there hasn't been enough blood shed to wash them away for ever ... if you haven't seen yet that the future generations must be built up on the one thing that you know for the real honest truth ... if you who have been down into the pit and up into the heavens don't know yet that we mustn't any more do evil that good may come ... ”

“ Dolly dropped down beside the low chair. Her face was that of a mischievous little brown elf.
"Give me a cigarette, quick," she whispered. "And smoke yourself, so Don won't know. He hates girls to smoke." Tallentyre handed over his case with a vague sense of balm. Dolly nodded her thanks and blew smoke from her rosy lips. "That's good. So you don't like being waited on? Well, you'll have to be, until you get well enough to wait on us." ”

“ Always proposes the first night he comes—moons round with Don all the next day—proposes again that night—goes away day after and writes her reams. The very best hand-made and hand-printed paper, too. Frightful extravagance in war-time."
"But if she—if she refuses him?" Tallentyre forced his words out with almost physical pain, and Dolly grunted.
"Beggars can't be choosers," she said.
"Beggars! Good Heavens! The richest man on earth might be proud to——"
"Geoff Halliday is very nearly one of 'em. He'll dress her in chiffons and diamonds, and give her motor-cars instead of a push-bike. ”

“ We must find a way ..."
Back in the dusk a tree-fern rustled, and, had they seen the bright eyes peering through the fronds, they would have thought of 'possums only. But no animal eyes ever held what shone in those brown eyes of Dolly's as she crouched with a gum-stick between her little sharp teeth, as though she had bitted and bridled herself for the bearing of some great load. The gripped hands in the faint moonlight fell apart at last. Tallentyre turned away, moving unsteadily. And then Dolly sprang out as a mountain-cat springs, and faced them. ”

“ He was driven beyond all but thought of her.
"You're done with Halliday. He's off the map. Darling—dearest one—he doesn't count any more. I count now. You love me—Claudia ..."
"I don't know. I—didn't know." She trembled and gasped. "Let me go! I promised poor old Don ..."
"Don?" Tallentyre stiffened suddenly with realisation whirling back to him, and the memory of the other night leaping up clear. Donald Senior had fought a harder and bitterer battle than himself. Could any decent man turn him back to face the guns again? And yet ... He drew the girl's hands to his breast. ”

“ For goodness' sake be a man and fight for what you know to be the truth. That's the only thing that can stand now all the world's gone to chaos. That's the only thing that will come out clean and whole. ”

“ But—I don't want things made harder for her ..."
"Harder for her!"
"She likes him—likes him quite a lot, or I couldn't ... She'd have done it long ago, but I—I held her back. Now ... the mother and the girls ... it's too much! We'd have to sell out, you know. I couldn't get through another year. The girls say they'll go out to work. They're all working now beyond their strength. I can't let it go on ..."
"And so you'd sell her—Claudia!" There was neither pity nor softness in Tallentyre just now. The pain was too great. ”

“ So you'll have to come to us at once, of course. Claudia will have the dog-cart here in ten minutes. You can sit in a trap, eh? Look here, I'm awfully sorry; never guessed you were as played out as all that ..."
"I don't often make such an ass of myself." Tallentyre's tone was bitter. "I hope she—your sister—won't trouble. I must get back to town to-night."
"Rot! Mrs. Bailey said you'd taken your rooms for a fortnight. If you think we'd let you stay here, with Christmas so soon, too—— Claud, here's this fellow says he's going back to town to-night!" ”

“ And then that voice which was dear beyond all things sloughed his fury from him.
"Dolly, dear ... for Don's sake ... for the sake of you all ... we—we'll learn to forget. And ... Geoff knows I don't love him. He is satisfied with—with——"
"And are you satisfied?" Dolly wheeled on Tallentyre.
"Dolly ... don't!" Claudia's voice was sharp with agony. But those moments in the fern-tree, which had taught Dolly the one thing needful, gave her force now.
"You've seen men fighting—dying," she cried to the man. "You've seen more of the essentials of life than I ever will. But you don't know. Oh ... ”