Pryde, "though I'm not as a rule keen on speeches. But somebody said that both Mr. Blake and Frank Hallett are going to speak, and that there's to be ruction over the Loan Clause. I should like to see Rose Garfit's face if Sir James is beaten."
It was settled that Minnie Pryde should walk with Elsie to Fermoy's, and see Lady Horace, about five o'clock, and in the meantime Mrs. Valliant went on with the ironing, and Elsie consulted Minnie about her dress for the May ball and other festivities. They were in the middle of their finery when Mr. Dominic Trant appeared, and he was followed by several other of Elsie's and Miss Pryde's admirers. On this afternoon, when the Public Offices closed early, there were always sure to be some young gentlemen at Riverside.
Mr. Trant attached himself at once to Elsie. He had puzzled her a little by his manner of late. Sometimes he had been sullen, even morose, sometimes tragic, sometimes he was ardent, and his dark eyes glowed with a sort of fierce excitement which was almost alarming. But Elsie had been a good deal taken up with other thoughts, and had not paid much attention to Mr. Trant. He amused and distracted her, and fed her vanity, and that was all.
To day he was in a tragic mood.
"When are you going back to Baròlin?" Elsie asked.
"You can answer that question better than I," he said.
"How?"
"It is you who keep me in Leichardt's Town. Do you suppose I care in the least for this fooling about hotel billiard rooms and tea-parties, and for philandering up and down Victoria-street? And yet I hang about Grandoni's half the morning, and eat ices and drink sherry cobblers in a way that plays the deuce with my digestion, on the chance of your turning up anywhere about; and I haunt the ferry steps, and I parade up and down the bunya walk in the Botanical Gardens—all for you."
"That is very foolish of you, Mr. Trant."
"Is it foolish?" He bent towards her. They were sitting on the boat-house steps in the banana grove, whither
