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 go back in the bush near one of the little townships. It's like wanting a woman, Jaz. I want it."

"Then why not do it?"

"I won't give in, not yet. It's like giving in to a woman; I won't give in yet. I'll come back later."

Jaz suddenly looked at Richard and smiled maliciously.

"You won't give in, Mr Somers, will you? You won't give in to the women, and Australia's like a woman to you. You wouldn't give in to Kangaroo, and he's dead now. You won't give in to Labour, or Socialism. Well, now, what will you do? Will you give in to America, do you think?"

"Heaven preserve me—if I'm to speak beforehand."

"Why, Mr Somers!" laughed Jaz, "seems to me you just go round the world looking for things you're not going to give in to. You're as bad as we folk."

"Maybe," said Richard. "But I'll give in to the Lord Almighty, which is more than you'll do—"

"Oh, well, now—we'd give in to Him if we saw Him," said Jaz, smiling with an odd winsomeness he sometimes had.

"All right. Well I prefer not to see, and yet to give in," said Richard.

Jaz glanced up at him suspiciously, from under his brows.

"And another thing," said Richard. "I won't give up the flag of our real civilised consciousness. I'll give up the ideals. But not the aware, self-responsible, deep consciousness that we've gained. I won't go back on that, Jaz, though Kangaroo did say I was the enemy of civilisation."

"You don't consider you are, then?" asked Jaz, pertinently.

"The enemy of civilisation? Well, I'm the enemy of this machine-civilisation and this ideal civilisation. But I'm not the enemy of the deep, self-responsible consciousness in man, which is what I mean by civilisation. In that sense of civilisation, I'd fight forever for the flag, and try to carry it on into deeper, darker places. It's an adventure, Jaz, like any other. And when you realise what you're doing, it's perhaps the best adventure."

Harriet brought the tea-tray on to the verandah.

"It's quite nice that somebody has come to see us," she