“I was about to be rude enough to say that most men don't care much for flowers.”
“If I buy Kaburie, Miss Fraser, I will come to you, cap in hand, and humbly beg you to instruct me what to do; and furthermore, I promise that when you say 'do this' it shall be done.”
“You are undertaking a big contract, Mr Gerrard,” said Forde with a laugh, as he rose to go to his horse; “you will have to send to Sydney for a Scotch gardener.”
As soon as the clergyman was out of hearing Gerrard, who had remembered Lacey's remark about “a parson being in the running,” said quietly, “I certainly am a most forgetful man, Miss Fraser, and ask your forgiveness. Here is a letter for you, which my friend Aulain asked me to deliver to you.”
The girl blushed deeply as she took the letter, for she instinctively divined that Gerrard had purposely deferred giving her the letter whilst Forde was with them. And from that moment she liked him.
“Thank you, Mr Gerrard,” she said, as she placed the letter in the pocket of her skirt. “Is Mr Aulain any better?”
“Yes, but he won't be 'fit' for another six weeks or so. He has had a very bad attack of fever this time. Of course you know that he and I are old friends?”
“Oh, yes, indeed! He always writes and speaks of you as 'old Tom-and-Jerry.' And I am so really, really glad to meet you, Mr Gerrard. Randolph says that you are the finest scrub rider in Australia, and he is next.”
“Ah, no, he is the first, as I told Lacey a couple of days ago. His own troopers can hardly follow him when——”
“Don't, Mr Gerrard! I know what you were about to say,” and she shuddered; “but please do not ever speak to me of Mr Aulain in connection with the Native Police. I loathe and detest them, and would rather he were a working miner or a stockman, than a leader of such fiends.”