CHAPTER V.
A GAUNTLET TO FATE.
Mr. Trant went away the next morning. Elsie did not go into the parlor to bid him good-bye, but remained in the verandah where she was sewing, and listened to his parting words to Lady Horace, who invited him to repeat his visit. "Ina has no tact," murmured Elsie to herself. "She might have seen that I didn't like him."
"Where's your sister?" asked Mr. Trant, and Ina's want of tact again displayed itself when she promptly replied, "Oh! Elsie is in the verandah."
Mr. Trant came out. "I have come to say good-bye and to tell you that I shall be over at Tunimba when you are there."
"I don't know that I am going to be there," said Elsie perversely.
Mr. Trant's face fell. "If you are not there, I shall come away the next day. Do you live up here, Miss Valliant?" he asked, after having waited in vain for Elsie to reply.
"No," she said. "I am only staying with my sister, and I am going back to Leichardt's Town almost immediately."
"Lord Horace wants me to come and sing. It isn't much of a ride over from Baròlin—only about fifteen miles."
"Oh!" said Elsie.
"Miss Valliant, why don't you like me?"
"Really, Mr. Trant, you ask rather embarrassing questions."
"But you don't. I see it in your face. You liked me a little after I sang last night. I knew I was having some effect upon you, and I should have liked to sing on for ever. I wish you'd let me come and sing to you."
"But I am going away. And besides, I mightn't like you to have an effect upon me."
"That means that you are a little afraid of me. I know that; I can make people afraid of me."
"Can you really? How?"
"I don't quite know. By looking at them. I can always make a woman like me, if I want to. I don't often want to. I don't care about them."
"Perhaps that is why you make them like you. People can often influence others just from the very reason that they don't care about them."
"I don't think that reasoning ought to apply to you and me. Please don't be offended. I only meant that it would be impossible to look at you often and remain indifferent."
"In that case," said Elsie, "it would be better not to look at me."
"Much better," said Trant, seriously. "I quite agree with you. It would not suit my way of life to care too much for a woman."
"What is your way of life?" asked Elsie, interested in spite of herself.
Trant laughed in a sort of sotto voce way that he had. "You wouldn't understand it if I were to tell you."
"From the outside it wouldn't seem to be so mysterious," said Elsie, piqued—"living at Baròlin and looking after horses and cattle. I understand something about that."
The black boy came round with Mr. Trant's horse.
"Well, good-bye," he said in a lingering manner. "I am very glad to have met you." Elsie gave him her hand. The black boy grinned as Trant went down the log steps.
"I say," he said, "Ba'al you got him Mary belonging to you?"
"Ba'al,"[1] answered Trant.
"That Budgery[2] Mary," said the black boy, making a gesture towards Elsie, who pretended not to see or hear. "Mine think it that fellow Hallett, plenty look after Elsie." "Elsie—I say," shouted the imp. An Australian black is no respecter of persons. "Mine got him dilly-bag for you."
The dilly-bag which had been plaited by the gins smelled atrociously of the camp, but it was a good pretext for escaping Trant's farewell gaze, and for running round to the store for a fig of tobacco, the purchase money agreed upon for the dilly-bag.
Trant rode off. Close by the door Hallett was saddling his horse, and Lord Horace was in conversation with a travelling digger, to whom he had been giving out rations.
"Lord, what infernal cheek!" Lord Horace was saying. "You'll have to look sharp, Hallett, to beat that."
"What is it that you are to look sharp about?" asked Elsie, coming towards him.
"It seems," said Hallett, drawing his lips together, and relaxing them with a determined expression, "that though poor Slaney was only buried yesterday, the Opposition candidate has already declared himself."
"What!" said Elsie.
"Posters up on the gum-trees all round Goondi. This fellow has come from the Bean-tree this morning, and they had telegraphed it on there. I wonder if Trant knew anything about it."
"Why, of course," put in the digger. "Trant is his partner, and Trant was at the Bean-tree yesterday, telegraphing all over the country. Good day, Miss." He touched his felt wideawake as Elsie turned to him impulsively.
"You don't mean that Mr. Trant is the Opposition candidate?" she asked.
"It's his partner, Miss," said the digger. "Blake, of Baròlin. He thinks he'll get in on the Irish vote—a flash sort of chap is Blake, they say. You take my advice, Mr. Hallett. Cut in at once, and take the wind out of his sails. You're safe enough on the Luya, but those Goondi chaps are all agin the squatters, and they like blather."
The man had taken some dirty shillings out of his pouch, and was handing them to Lord Horace in payment for his rations. Lord Horace counted them, carefully, and thrust them into his pocket.
"Have a nip," he said, and took the digger to the kitchen where Lady Horace acted as Hebe, and where his health was drunk, and that of her ladyship, with due formalities. Lord and Lady Horace were popular in the district, and a good many loafers found their way to the Dell. They could always fetch Lord Horace by admiring his amateur bush ways, and he always wound up business by offering them a grog.
"Where are you going?" asked Elsie, of Hallett.
"To the Bean-tree, and perhaps to Goondi, to look after my political interests."
"Isn't it rather odd that Mr. Blake should have got into the field so quickly? He must have heard of Mr. Slaney's death almost as soon as it happened," said Elsie.
"I suppose he has been working up the district for some time on the sly," answered Hallett. "Trant must have set the wires going. That fellow brought me a telegram from the Bean-tree, which had been forwarded by Mrs. Jem, on the chance of its picking me up here. My supporters want to see me."
Elsie noticed that he had pinned into his coat the sprig of stephanotis she had thrown away the night before. "Why do you keep that withered thing?" she said. "If you come round to the verandah, I'll give you a better one."
"Give me the bit you have in your belt," he said. "It will bring me luck."
She took it out with a little hesitation. "You'd much better have a fresh piece," and she moved to the house. He followed her. It was only an excuse for getting out of eye-range. As soon as they were in the front verandah he stopped her as she was going to the stephanotis creeper.
"No, give me that."
"No, I want it for myself."
She held it back, but he took it from her, and put it to his lips.
"I have spoilt it for you now," he said.
She still held out her hand. "How?"
"Because I kissed the flowers. There!" He tossed them away.
She gathered another spray. "That is a very nice one: and please don't throw it away directly you are out of sight of the house."
He laughed. "I'll show you the ghost of it next time we meet."
"That means that we sha'n't meet for a long time."
"Long enough for these to wither. I don't know when I shall be able to get over again. I must canvass the district. We shall meet at Tunimba."
"Write and tell me how things are going," she said.
"Do you really care to hear? Oh! Elsie, it makes me glad."
"Of course I care to hear. I am immensely excited. I wish I could go to Goondi and canvass for you. I'd make love to the Luya selectors. I'd abuse Mr. Blake to your very heart's content. Blake of Baròlin! Has it struck you that the name sounds rather poetic?"
"Much more so than Hallett, of Tunimba."
"Well, yes! I love a poetic name. I couldn't marry a man who was called Smith. Two Smiths proposed to me, by the way, and they were good matches, and Mammie and Ina scolded me for sending them about their business. To be sure, I couldn't have married them both. Oh, what a bore it is that one must marry—somebody!"
"I can't bear to hear you talk like that. Why must you marry—anybody?"
"Because I've got no other way of gaining my living. Because my prettiness is going—oh yes! Girls in Australia go off very soon. And do you think I haven't heard it said that Elsie Valliant is going off? Because I should hate to be an old maid. Mr. Hallett"
"Yes?"
"You know we settled last night that our compact was at an end."
"Did we? I think not."
"Yes. I told you to go. I gave you a definite answer. There's nothing more to wait for."
"I think there is a great deal to wait for."
"I was most splendidly unselfish. I sacrificed myself. You don't even thank me for my disinterestedness. You are to expect nothing from me, and I am to give up the gratification of having the member for Luya—a prospective minister—among my admirers."
"Let us make a new compact," he said gravely. "I don't ask anything from you—except absolute frankness."
"Oh! that I have always given you."
"Go on giving it. Let us talk out quite openly to each other. Tell me that you don't care a bit for me—if it is true. Tell me if your affection—you said it was affection—deepens or lessens. I shall never reproach you if you hurt me. I am willing to take my chance."
"Well, what else?"
"Let us go on in this way. You will know—yes, for I shall tell you unless you forbid me—that I love you. That is not to be gainsaid. I don't care how long I have to wait. You told me that you liked me better than anyone else who has ever cared for you."
"Yes, but that isn't saying much. I have never cared for anyone."
"Well, that is all I want—now. I think I like you to be like that. It fits in with my star fancy. I can worship you without a twinge of jealousy. And when you flirt, I know that it only means that you are dull and want amusement."
"That is a charitable construction to put on my evil doings."
"I don't mind. It's like the naughtiness of a child that doesn't know what it's doing. One can't think hardly of it when it's so unconscious. That's what you are. You don't realize that you can hurt people. And all that fancy about the hero—the Prince"
"Yes, the hero—the Prince. Is that like a child, too? But the child's fancies sometimes become the realities of the woman."
"This is what I meant by absolute frankness. If the Prince comes, tell me; you will be able to trust me. I shall stand aside. I will worry you no more. Wait, and I will wait, too."
"For my Prince? And how long do you give me to wait?"
"You shall fix your own time. Throw a gauntlet to fate."
The phrase struck her. "'A gauntlet to fate.' I like that. I did not know that you could say such poetic things. Well, I will throw a gauntlet to fate. Well, here's my challenge." She flung a glove she carried into the air. As it came down she tried to catch it; but it fell almost into his hand.
"That is an omen!" he exclaimed. "And the time?"
"I challenge fate to bring my Prince along within the year—a year from this day—what is the date?"
"The twenty-ninth of March."
"The twenty-ninth of next March, then. It shall be yes or no once and for all."