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118 belong to some great old family, and who have lived in Europe, and care so much for excitement and—and all that you have talked to me about"

"Well?"

"That you can be content to live in the bush, and in such a quiet place as Baròlin Gorge."

"But I don't live in Baròlin Gorge. At least I haven't lived there much as yet. And then you forget, that I am going in for the maddening excitement of the Australian political arena. What more could I have?"

"I should have thought you could have had much more in Europe, and that at least you would have had the society of people you cared about."

"I have society that I care about in Australia."

"How long is it since you left England, Mr. Blake?"

He seemed to be thinking. "It is about twelve, years since I left Ireland."

"Ireland—yes, I forgot. Do you care very much for your country?"

"I sucked in patriotism with my mothers milk. It was born in me with many other things that I should be better without."

"Better?"

"Happier, at any rate."

"But you—you ought to be happy," said Elsie, falteringly.

He looked at her lingeringly. Her eyes were turned away. She was sitting very erect. Her profile was towards him. There was a lovely glow on her delicate cheeks, a still more beautiful glow in her eyes, and her lips were sweet and tremulous.

"Yes, I ought to be happy," he repeated, "and especially at this moment. Well, I am happy, Miss Valliant. Or it would be truer to say that the one man in me is happy."

"I don't understand."

"Don't you know," he said, "that in most of us there are two beings? Sometimes the one is kept so utterly in subjection by the other that you hardly know it is there. But in