"He'd only think you were a waster. He wouldn't think anyone but a waster would marry me. If I told him you were a Scotch farmer's daughter he'd picture something in short skirts, red cheeks and bare legs that talked like Harry Lauder. Or else he'd think I was lying, and had got off with a barmaid and wasn't married at all, and was living on some girl. They'd always think the worst of me, at home. I'm not even going to tell the Mater—"
She thought for some minutes.
"I don't much care," she said at last. "I think your father's rather a horrible man, but I may be wrong about him. My impressions of him are formed from yours, you see. It seems that no one but a most inhuman man could kick his son out. But then—well, I don't know just how much you worried him. But I'd have liked you to tell your mother. She looked so grieved that day on the tender, and she was crying so miserably. I'd have liked her to know you were taken care of."
"She wouldn't believe it, either, Marcella," he said gloomily. "And you don't know my Mater. The very fact that you were in the steerage would make her think you couldn't possibly be any good in the world. If I told her you cleaned spoons and forks for a steward she'd think you did it from habit because you'd been someone's servant. They've no imagination—"
"All mothers have, I'm sure," she told him. "I'd have liked your mother to be my friend. I'd have liked to write to her about you—"
"God forbid," he said fervently, and once more she gave way.
Later on that day they discussed ways and means. His definite picture of getting married and staying in hotels in Sydney had made the dream concrete. She had hitherto simply seen them both glittering along in an aura of Deliverance. Right at the back of her mind she still clung to pictures of knightly mail, obtained from she had not the slightest idea where. But that fitted badly with hotels in Sydney and conventions he was going to teach her. In the evening they went to their favourite seat on the anchor and watched the phosphorescence shimmering away in ghostly paths to the star-splashed sky.
"Louis," she said hurriedly, "how much does it cost you to get married in Australia?"
"Lord knows, I don't," he said, sitting up sharp. "There's a music-hall song about 'She cost me seven and sixpence; I wish I'd bought a dog.' But that's in England. I've a hazy notion that it's much more expensive in Australia than England. Why?"
"I'm wondering how we're going to do it. We've about eleven shillings in the world—you see, uncle is meeting me in Melbourne. I had a cable at Port Said to say so. And I'm afraid I'll have to do a little evasion. I don't know him at all, but he may think it his duty to see that I go with him to Wooratonga. Or he may enquire into your prospects like uncles do—"