Page:Kangaroo, 1923.pdf/63

 That's how I came to know Jack: through Alfred. Jack always calls him Fred."

"You didn't know him before the war?"

"No, not till he came home. Alfred used to talk about him in his letters, but I never thought then I should marry him. They are great friends yet, the two of them."

The rain that she had prophesied now began to fall—big straight drops, that resounded on the tin roofs of the houses.

"Won't you come in and sit with us till Jack comes?" asked Somers. "You'll feel dreary, I know."

"Oh, don't think I said it for that," said Victoria.

"Come round, though," said Somers. And they both ran indoors out of the rain. Lightning had started to stab in the south-western sky, and clouds were shoving slowly up.

Victoria came round and sat talking, telling of her home on the south coast. It was only about fifty miles from Sydney, but it seemed another world to her. She was so quiet and simple, now, that both the Somers felt drawn to her, and glad that she was sitting with them.

They were talking still of Europe, Italy, Switzerland, England, Paris—the wonderworld to Victoria, who had never been out of New South Wales in her life, in spite of her name—which name her father had given her to annoy all his neighbours, because he said the State of Victoria was run like a paradise compared to New South Wales—although he too never went a yard out of his home state, if he could help it; they were talking still of Europe when they heard Jack's voice calling from the opposite yard.

"Hello," cried Victoria, running out. "Are you there, Jack? I was listening for the motor-bike, I remember now, you went by tram."

Sometimes she seemed a little afraid of him—physically afraid—though he was always perfectly good-humoured with her. And this evening she sounded like that—as if she feared his coming home, and wanted the Somers to shelter her.

"You've found a second home over there, apparently," said Jack, advancing towards the fence. "Well, how's things?"

It was dark, so they could not see his face. But he