And yet he wanted Monica. But he knew she was fooling round with Easu. So deep in his soul formed the motive of revenge.
There are times when a flood of realisation and purpose sweeps through a man. This was one of Jack's times. He was not definitely conscious of what he realised and of what he purposed. Yet, there it was, resolved in him.
He was trying not to hear Dr. Rackett's voice talking to Mary. Even Dr. Rackett was losing his Oxford drawl, and taking on some of the Australian ding-dong. But Rackett, like Jack, was absolutely fixed in his pride of race, no matter what extraneous vice he might have. Jack had a vague idea it was opium. Some chemical stuff.
". . . free run of old George's books? I should say it was a doubtful privilege for a young lady. But you hardly seem to belong to West Australia. I think England is really your place. Do you actually want to belong, may I ask?"
"To Western Australia? To the country, yes, very much. I love the land, the country life, Dr. Rackett. I don't care for the social life of a town like Perth. But I should like to live all my life on a farm—in the bush."
"Would you now!" said Rackett. "I wonder where you get that idea from. You are the granddaughter of an earl."
"Oh, my grandfather is farther away from me than the moon. You would never know how far!" laughed Mary. "No, I am colonial born and bred. Though of course there is a fascination about the English. But I hardly knew Papa. He was a tenth child, so there wasn't much of the earldom left to him. And then he was a busy A. D. C. to the Governor-General. And he married quite late in life. And then Mother died when I was little, and I got passed on to Aunt Matilda. Mother was Australian born. I don't think there is much English in me."
Mary said it in a queer complacent way, as if there were some peculiar, subtle antagonism between England and the colonial, and she was ranged on the colonial side. As if she were a subtle enemy of the father, the English father in her.
"Queer! Queer thing to me!" said Rackett, as if he half felt the antagonism. For he would never be colonial, not if he lived another hundred years in Australia. "I suppose," he added, pointing his pipe stem upwards, "it comes from those unnatural stars up there. I always feel they are doing something to me."
"I don't think it's the stars," laughed Mary. "I am just Australian, in the biggest part of me, that's all."