He looked up at her proudly, and laughed slyly. “I mean to be both, dear girl.”
“You have an incurable ambition,” she said.
A LITTLE MASQUERADE
“Oh, nothing matters,” she said, with a soft, ironical smile, as she tossed a bit of sugar to the cockatoo.
“Quite so,” was his reply, and he carefully gathered in a loose leaf of his cigar. Then, after a pause: “And yet, why so? It’s a very pretty world one way and another.”
“Yes, it’s a pretty world at times.”
At that moment they were both looking out over a part of the world known as the Nindobar Plains, and it was handsome to the eye. As far as could be seen was a carpet of flowers under a soft sunset. The homestead by which they sat was in a wilderness of blossoms. To the left was a high rose-coloured hill, solemn and mysterious; to the right—afar off—a forest of gum-trees, pink and purple against the horizon. At their feet, beyond the veranda, was a garden joyously brilliant, and bright-plumaged birds flitted here and there.
The two looked out for a long time, then, as if by a mutual impulse, suddenly turned their eyes on each other. They smiled, and, somehow, that smile was not delightful to see. The girl said presently: “It is all on the surface.”
Jack Sherman gave a little click of the tongue peculiar to him, and said: “You mean that the beautiful birds have dreadful voices; that the flowers are scentless; that the leaves of the trees are all on edge and give no shade; that where that beautiful carpet of blossoms is there was a blazing quartz plain six months ago, and there’s likely to be the same again; that, in brief, it’s pretty, but hollow.” He made a slight fantastic gesture, as though mocking himself for so long a speech, and added: “Really, I didn’t prepare this little oration.”