Page:Kangaroo, 1923.pdf/139

 "Think of it now. Could any woman stand me?" he asked, with a slight shrug.

"I should have thought they'd have adored you," she cried.

"Of course they do. They can't stand me, though. And I thoroughly sympathise with them."

Harriet looked at him thoughtfully.

"Yes," she said slowly. "You're too much like Abraham's bosom. One would feel nowhere."

Kangaroo threw down his napkin and pushed back his chair and roared with laughter—roared and roared with laughter. The Chinese man-servant stood back perturbed. Harriet went very red—the dinner waited. Then suddenly he became quiet, looking comically at Harriet, and still sitting back from table. Then he opened his arms and held them outstretched, his head on one side.

"The way to nowhere," he said, ironically.

She did not say any more, and he turned to the man-servant.

"My glass is empty, John," he said.

"Ah, well," he sighed, "if you please one woman you can't please all women."

"And you must please all women," said Harriet, thoughtfully. "Yes, perhaps you must. Perhaps it is your mission."

"Mission! Good God! Now I'm a fat missionary. Dear Mrs Somers, eat my dinner, but don't swallow me in a mouthful. Eating your host for hors d'uvres. You're a dangerous ogre, a Medusa with her hair under her hat.  Let's talk of Peach Melba. Where have you had the very best Peach Melba you ever tasted?"

After this he became quiet, and a little constrained, and when they had withdrawn for coffee, the talk went subduedly, with a little difficulty.

"I suppose your husband will have told you, Mrs Somers, of our heaven-inspired scheme of saving Australia from the thieves, dingoes, rabbits, rats and starlings, humanly speaking."

"No, he hasn't told me. He's only told me there was some political business going on."

"He may as well put it that way as any other. And, you advised him not to have anything to do with it?"