“He’s not so very fat,” said Somers.
“No, he’s not got what you’d call a corporation and a whole urban council in front of him. Neither is he flat just there, like you and me.”
Kangaroo arrived the next day at Torestin with a large bunch of violets in his hand: pale, expensive, late winter violets. He took off his hat to Harriet and bowed quite deep, without shaking hands. He had been a student at Munich.
“Oh, how do you do!” cried Harriet. “Please don’t look at the horrid room, we leave in the morning.”
Kangaroo looked vacantly around. He was not interested, so he saw nothing: he might as well have been blind.
“It’s a very nice room,” he said. “May I give you the violets? The poet said you liked having them about.”
She took them in her two hands, smelling their very faint fragrance.
“They’re not like English violets—or those big dark fellows in Italy,” he said. “But still we persuade ourselves that they are violets.”
“They’re lovely. I feel I could warm my hands over them,” she said.
“And now they’re quite happy violets,” he replied, smiling his rare, sweet smile at her. “Why are you taking the poet away from Sydney?”