Page:Kangaroo, 1923.pdf/79

 "It isn't Australia," said Harriet. "Australia's lonely. It's just the people. And it isn't even the people—if you would only keep your proper distance, and not make yourself cheap to them and get into messes."

"No, it's the country. It's in the air. I want to leave it."

But he was not very emphatic. Harriet wanted to go down to the South Coast, of which she had heard from Victoria.

"Think,' she said, "it must be lovely there—with the mountain behind, and steep hills, and blackberries, and lovely little bays with sand."

"There'll be no blackberries. It's end of June—which is their mid-winter."

"But there'll be the other things. Let's do that, and never mind the beastly money for this pokey Torestin."

"They've asked us to go with them to Mullumbimby in a fortnight. Shall we wait till then and look?"

Harriet sat in silence for some moments.

"We might," she said reluctantly. She didn't want to wait. But what Victoria had told her of Mullumbimby, the township on the South Coast, so appealed to her that she decided to abide by her opportunity.

And then curiously enough, for the next week the neighbours hardly saw one another. It was as if the same wave of revulsion had passed over both sides of the fence. They had fleeting glimpses of Victoria as she went about the house. And when he could, Jack put in an hour at his garden in the evening, tidying it up finally for the winter. But the weather was bad, it rained a good deal; there were fogs in the morning, and foghorns on the harbour; and the Somers kept their doors continually blank and shut.

Somers went round to the shipping agents and found out about boats to San Francisco, and talked of sailing in July, and of stopping at Tahiti or at Fiji on the way, and of cabling for money for the fares. He figured it all out. And Harriet mildly agreed. Her revulsion from Australia had passed quicker than his, now that she saw herself escaping from town and from neighbours to the quiet of a house by the sea, alone with him. Still she let him talk. Verbal agreement and silent opposition is perhaps the best weapon on such occasions.