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 gone in the silly blind admiration for her husband, Uncle Elmer and his nasty, mean questions, and Naomi, silent, and looking as if she were going to cry. (If only she wouldn't sulk and play the martyr!) And Mabelle's half-witted questions were worse than Uncle Elmer's cynical remarks, for they made him see suddenly that his father was lying. He was creating a whole story that wasn't true, and he was enjoying himself immensely. If it was a lie, if he had deliberately deserted his wife and child, why had he come back now?

Jason went on and on, talking, talking, talking. He told of his ranch of eighteen hundred acres and of the thousands of sheep he owned and of the sixty herders employed to take care of them. He described the long drouths that sometimes afflicted them, and told a great deal about Melbourne and Sydney.

"Your Pa," he said, addressing Philip, "is an important man out there." And the implication was, "You don't think much of him, but you ought to see him in Australia."

But Philip was silent, and thought, "He's probably lying about that, too," and, as the conversation went on, he thought, "He's never said anything about women out there. He's never spoken about that side of his life, and he's not the kind to leave women alone."

"And I suppose you'll be wanting to take Emma back to Australia," said Uncle Elmer, regarding Jason over his steel-rimmed spectacles.

"No . . . I won't be doing that. After all, her life is here, ain't it? I shall have to go back from time to time to look after my affairs, but . . ."

"Don't speak of that now," Emma interrupted, "when you've only just arrived." 