"I know," he said. And the smile became his own.
"Of course I was thinking of my own people," explained Moya. "They can't see beyond Toorak—unless there's something going on at Government House. And I'm so tired of it all—wouldn't settle there now if they paid me. So we're out of touch. Of course I would have loved any one belonging to you; but they mightn't have thought so much of me."
If she was fishing it was an unsuccessful cast. Rigden had grown too grave to make pretty speeches even to his betrothed.
"I wish you had known my mother," was all he said.
"So do I, dear, and your father too."
"Ah! I never knew him myself."
"Tell me about them," she coaxed, holding his sunburnt hand in one of hers, and stroking it with the other. She was not very inquisitive on the subject herself. But she happened to have heard much of it at home, and it was disagreeable not to be in a position to satisfy the curiosity of others. She was scarcely put in that position now.
"They came out in the early days," said Rigden, "both of the colony and of their own married life. Yet already these were numbered, and I was born an orphan. But my dear mother lived to make a man of me: she was the proudest and the poorest little woman in the colony; and in point of fact (if this matters to you) she was not badly connected at home."
Moya said that it didn't matter to her one bit; and was unaware of any insincerity in the denial.
"I don't tell you what her name was," continued Rigden. "I would if you insisted. But I hate the sound of it myself, for they treated her very badly on her marriage, and we never used to mention them from one year's end to another."