Every one seemed in evening dress—and even Norah knew she had seen no dresses like those the women wore—rich, clinging things, in soft and delicate colours like the inner side of flower petals. The masses of electric light took up the leaping light of jewels on their necks and in their hair; all up and down the room the eye caught the many-coloured gleam, twinkling and sparkling like rainbow stars. Everywhere was laughter and chatter and the chink of plates and glasses; and somewhere, unseen, a string band was playing softly a waltz tune with a lilt in it like a bird’s note. Norah forgot all about being nervous. Indeed, she remembered nothing, being deeply occupied with gazing, until she found a deft waiter putting soup before her.
“That’s my order,” said her father, and smiled. “You and Jean have had an exciting day, and you’re to eat just what I tell you.”
By these wily means any difficulties the menu might have suggested disappeared. Moreover, the waiter was a man of tact, and seemed to regard it as only ordinary if his clients kept him waiting while they put their heads together over the merits of various items with very fine French names.
“Experience in these things is everything,” said Jim, surveying a peculiar substance on his plate. “I ordered something that read like a poem, and it turns out a sort of half-bred hash! Thanks, I’ll have beef!” So they all had beef, and finished up rather hurriedly with jelly, which, as Wally said, could be demolished quickly; for the hands of the clock were slipping round, and a pantomime was not a thing to be kept waiting—especially as there was no likelihood that it would wait!—a reflection that made the situation far more serious. Jim raced up for coats for the girls, and they all hastened out.
In the street the lights of Melbourne lit the sky. Far as the eye could reach the yellow glow shone against the star-gemmed blackness. Here and there a point of special brilliance twinkled—it was hard to tell whether it was a tall arc light reaching up into the very heavens, or a lonely star that had leaned down towards the friendly earth. Up and down the Bourke Street hills the lamps formed a linked chain of diamonds on either side, while in their midst the low gliding tram-lights were rubies and sapphires. The big head-lights of motors made gleaming flashes as they turned, or shot straight up the wide street, twin eyes of a dazzling radiance—so bright that when they flashed past darkness seemed to fall doubly dark behind them. And there were creeping bicycle lights, and streaks of white fire, that were the lamps of motor cycles; and red and white lights that went by in silent rubber-tyred hansoms, noiseless save for the jingling bit and the “klop-klop” of the horse’s hoofs upon the wooden blocks. Advertisement signs in huge electric letters flickered into sight and disappeared again—one moment dazzling, the next velvet black; and over picture theatres and other places of amusement were gleaming signs of fire. And up from the city below came the deep hum of the people that only ceases for a little when the lights go out—that wakes again even before the pencils of Dawn come to streak the eastern sky.
Then a tram came by, took them on board, and in a moment they were slipping down the hill towards a busy intersection where the post office stood, a mighty block of buildings, with its tall clock just chiming the quarter-hour above them. On again, through the wide, busy street, full of hurrying theatre crowds. Barefooted newsboys ran beside the car whenever it stopped, calling out harrowing details from the evening papers. They passed cabs, climbing the further hill; and swift motors slipped by them—in each Norah and Jean caught glimpses of women in evening dress, with scarfs like trails of coloured mist. Everywhere the shop windows were brilliantly lighted, although it was long after closing time; and scores of people were staring through the glass at the gorgeous displays within.
Norah gasped at it all. It was her first experience of the City by night, and she found it rather bewildering.
“Does Melbourne ever stop being busy?” she uttered.
Mr. Linton laughed.
“Not often,” he said—“and not for long. Personally, I prefer old Billabong. But this is all very well for a little while.”