'Mona Lisa--La Gioconda. I know--I've been told that before.'

'Yes, that's it. Mona Lisa. People have written about her.'

'Reams. Some day I'll read you what Pater says of her, unless you've read him already--by your camp fire.'

For he had talked to her, as he had talked to Joan Gildea, about his readings and his dreamings under the stars in the Bush.

'Eh! you shall teach me about these new writing chaps. I don't understand your up-to-date theories. I've always gone in for plain facts--standard reading--history--great thoughts of great minds--old books brought out in people's editions. I'm up a tree--downright bushed when you begin upon your queer ideas--all those new-fangled religions and notions--Theosophy, spooks--about the earth being alive, and thoughts making a sort of wireless telegraph system--I do believe in that, though--to a certain extent. And your Brotherhood of Man! Bosh!

We're all like a lot of potatoes thrown into a sack and shaken about by circ.u.mstance. And the big ones come to the top, and the little ones--because they're little--sink to the bottom. I've always wanted to be one of the big potatoes, and mean to be.'

Bridget laughed. She had a ringing laugh when she was amused.

'Oh! go on, Colin. I grant that you're a very big potato and I'm a very little one.'

'You know I didn't mean it that way. You're the biggest potato in the whole bag as far as mind goes, and you make me feel the smallest.

You're so wonderful that the marvel of your being contented to marry me is a bit staggering. And that brings me back to my question, which you haven't answered.'

'How have I brought myself to the incredible enterprise of marrying an Australian bushman? Do you know?'--she became suddenly serious--'I have asked myself that question once or twice, and I haven't been able to answer it.'

The light of adoration in his eyes faded a little.

'I've been afraid of that,' he said slowly. I've been afraid that you might be rushing into the business without reasoning it out--weighing all the sides of it.'

'If I were, it would only be the way of the O'Haras.'

His blue eyes became more troubled.

'I've been afraid of that,' he repeated. 'Bridget--suppose--my dear, suppose it was to turn out a mistake.'

'Well, I've made so many mistakes in my life and lived through them that one more wouldn't matter,' she rejoined lightly.

'This one would matter--because it would be irretrievable. Suppose that you were to find that you couldn't put up with the Bush life--I've told you that you are letting your imagination and your enthusiasm run a bit away with you, and that there may be hardships you don't reckon on. For though it all looks to me plain sailing now, and I hope it will only be a year or two before I can put on a manager, and give you the home and the climate that are more suited to you, one can't tell in Australia that there may not be a drought or that a cattle boom may not turn to a slump--do you see?'

'I shan't mind in the least, Colin--that is, I shall mind immensely, but if there comes a drought it will be quite exciting helping you to drag out the poor, thirsty beasts, when they get bogged into the waterholes as you were describing the other day.'

He laughed.

'YOU--helping to drag out bogged beasts! Why! they'd drag you in.'

'Well, there are other things. Riding! I could help you to break in horses. All the O'Haras are good on horseback'--at which he laughed immoderately and told her that when she had seen one, Zack Duppo, on a buckjumper, she would not be keen to try that game. But it might amuse her to help cut out a few tame bullocks on a drafting camp if she had a good old station mount that knew its work.

She shuddered. 'I love horses, but I should run away from the first bullock that looked at me. I'm frightened of beasts, and, on second thoughts, I should not want to pull out bogged ones. And I loathe cooking--domestic work--in a house. It would be different out of doors.

You've promised to teach me the first time we camp out how to make--what do you call them--johnny-cakes?'

'Ah! The first time we camp out together. If you knew how I've dreamed of that. Biddy, I've got plans in my mind for that--' He caught her two hands in a fierce grasp, and as he looked at her, his eyes full of love, he would--greatly daring--have held her close to his breast and kissed the provocative lips, as yet almost virgin to his. But she made a shrinking movement, and he, acutely sensitive, dropped her hands, and the love that had flamed in his eyes gave place to the dour look she did not know so well.

'Why do you always keep me at a distance?' he said, and drew abruptly away from her.

'Dear man, you mustn't be importunate. It--it's const.i.tutional with me.

I've always hated love-making at close quarters.'

'Always! Does that mean that you've been in the habit of letting men kiss you?'

'Colin, you are rude--brutal.'

'D'ye think so? It seems to me that I'm only as Nature made me.

Biddy--if you feel like that now--how will it be when you're my wife?'

She flushed a little, but as her way was, evaded him.

'Perhaps I shall have grown more used to it all by that time.'

'The time is not so long--only a fortnight from now. And when you hold me off from the touch of your hand--the feel of your lips--well, it makes me wonder....'

She gave a little alarmed shiver.

'Don't wonder, Colin. Don't worry.... And oh! before everything, don't drive me--it isn't safe with an O'Hara woman. I can see that you don't understand women--of a certain type.'

'Oh! I grant you women haven't stood for a great deal in my life, and the few I've known well have been of the humble, human sort. But I do know this, Bridget'--his face softened--'I do know that a proud, sensitive woman--which is what you are and what I love you for being--is like a thoroughbred mare, out the first time in harness. You must keep your hands tight on her and let her go her own pace. I can tell you, too, the cart-horse kind that has to be driven with a whip and a "gee-up" all the time wouldn't be the type for me.'

She laughed gain, but shakily. There was an appeal in her voice.

'Colin, you've told me a lot about breaking in young horses, and how patient one has to be with them. Be patient with me.... Now, I'll try and answer your question--truthfully. I only know in a very confused sort of way WHY I want to marry you.... I think you must understand what a lonely sort of life I've led, really--and what a dreadful muddle I've made of it--Well, I've told you how I hated everything. And though I can laugh, and be interested, too, in Molly Gaverick's way of looking at things, and in her determination not "to be out of the swim"--I was just as determined myself, when I had the mood to be in it--and though one side of me hankers after the push and the struggle and the worldliness--yet the other side of me revolts against it, and longs to be washed clean of all the sordid social grime. There! I've felt about marrying you that it would be a new baptism into a bigger, fresher, purer life--do you see?'

'Yes--I see.' His tone was doubtful. 'You've tried it before--that idea of bigger interests--a different kind of life--in other ways, Biddy, haven't you?'

'Oh! in ever so many ways. Of course, that wasn't only in the sense of love--hero worship, you know. It was the schemes, ideas, plans for living in the higher part of one. Tolstoy, Prentice Mulford--that kind of thing.... Colin, you blame me for not GIVING; yet, all my life, I've been blamed for giving too freely.'

'For giving too freely!' He repeated sharply.

'You mustn't misunderstand me. I said it hadn't only to do with men making love to me--my ideas about a different life. It was my general att.i.tude--expecting to meet something great and being disappointed....

Of course, I've suffered--suffered horribly--in my heart--in my pride.

And I've often found that my att.i.tude towards things brought me into difficulties. The average person, if it's a man--supposes that because one has such ideas one must be a kind of abandoned creature. And, if it's a woman, that one has some mean, ulterior motive. I've always seemed to be looking for largeness and finding only what was small. You attracted me because you're like nature--big, simple, elemental.'

'Now, what the deuce do you mean by elemental?'

'Primal, unadulterated--closer to the heart of life and nature. It's a sort of cosmic quality. You are large--your surroundings are large.'

He laughed, only half comprehending, gauche in the expression of his deep-hearted satisfaction.

'One thousand square miles, two thirds of it fair grazing country in good seasons, and will be first-rate when I've worked out my artesian bore system. Plenty of s.p.a.ce there for a woman to swing her petticoats, in--your riding skirt it'll have to be.'

'There! You see!' she cried. 'COULD one be mean or small in such conditions? It's glorious, the thought of riding over one thousand square miles--and tapping Mother Earth for your water supply! It will be just what I said--a new baptism--a washing in Jordan. But you will be patient, Colin; promise me that you will be good to me, and not ask too much--at first.'

There came a note into her voice which intoxicated the man with hope and joy. But he restrained himself. He would not frighten her again.

'Good to you! Biddy--you know you're sacred to me--I'll do everything--I'll be as patient as you could wish until you get so used to me that everything comes naturally. You understand? So long as you'll trust me and open your heart to me, I'm not afraid that you won't love me, my dear, in the end.'