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 know him much better than I do. I haven't got a rock-bottom opinion of him yet."

"It's not a matter of the time you've known him," said Jaz. He was manifestly hedging, and trying to get at something. "You know I belong to his gang, don't you?"

"Yes," said Somers, wondering at the word 'gang.'

"And for that reason I oughtn't to criticise him, ought I?"

Somers reflected for some moments.

"There's no oughts, if you feel critical," he answered.

"I think you feel critical of him yourself at times," said Jaz, looking up with a slow, subtle smile of cunning: like a woman's disconcerting intuitive knowledge. It laid Somers' soul bare for the moment. He reflected. He had pledged no allegiance to Kangaroo.

"Yet," he said aloud to Jaz, "if I had joined him I wouldn't want to hinder him."

"No, we don't want to hinder him. But we need to know where we are. Supposing you were in my position—and you didn't feel sure of things! A man has to look things in the face. You yourself, now—you're holding back, aren't you?"

"I suppose I am," said Richard. ""But then I hold back from everything."

Jaz looked at him searchingly.

"You don't like to commit yourself?" he said, with a sly smile.

"Not altogether that. I'd commit myself, if I could. It's just something inside me shakes its head and holds back."

Jaz studied his knuckles for some time.

"Yes," he said slowly. "Perhaps you can afford to stand out. You've got your life in other things. Some of us feel we haven't got any life if we're not—if we're not mixed up in something." He paused, and Richard waited. "But the point is this—" Jaz looked up again with his light-grey, serpent's eyes. "Do you yourself see Kangaroo pulling it off?" There was a subtle mockery in the question.

"What?"

"Why—you know. This revolution, and this new Aus-