“Oh, no, you never pledged yourself,” said Jack laconically.
“You see I don’t believe in these things,” said Somers, flushing.
“What’s that you don’t believe in?”
And Jack watched him with two black, round eyes, with a spark dancing slowly in each, in a slow gaze putting forth all his power. But Somers now looked back into the two dark, malevolent pools.
“In revolutions—and public love and benevolence and feeling righteous,” he said.
“What love, what benevolence and righteousness?” asked Jack, vaguely, still watching with those black, sardonic eyes. “I never said anything about them.”
“You know you want to be the saviours of Australia,” said Richard.
“I didn’t know. But what’s wrong with it?”
“I’m no good at saving.”
“We don’t pretend to be saviours. We want to do our best for Australia, it being our own country. And the Pommies come out from England to try to upset us. But they won’t. They may as well stop in their dead-and-rotten old country.”