Kitty nodded.
‘She always does,’ she answered; ‘you will come too.’
Vandeloup shook his head.
‘I am going down to Ballarat to the Wattle Tree Hotel to see my friend Pierre,’ he said, in a preoccupied manner, ‘and will have something to eat there. Then I will come up again about eight o’clock, in time to see Madame off.’
‘Aren’t you going back with her?’ asked Kitty, in surprise, as they rose to their feet.
‘No,’ he replied, dusting his knees with his hand, ‘I stay all night in Ballarat, with Madame’s kind permission, to see the theatre. Now, good-bye at present, Bebe,’ kissing her, ‘I will be back at eight o’clock, so you can excuse me to Madame till then.’
He ran gaily down the hill waving his hat, and Kitty stood looking after him with pride in her heart. He was a lover any girl might have been proud of, but Kitty would not have been so satisfied with him had she known what his real thoughts were.
‘Marry!’ he said to himself, with a laugh, as he walked gaily along; ‘hardly! When we get to Melbourne, my sweet Bebe, I will find some way to keep you off that idea—and when we grow tired of one another, we can separate without the trouble or expense of a divorce.’
And this heartless, cynical man of the world was the keeper into whose hands innocent Kitty was about to commit the whole of her future life.
After all, the fabled Sirens have their equivalent in the male sex, and Homer’s description symbolizes a cruel truth.