He had a way of lowering his voice when he spoke of love—as if he felt it a sacred subject; and this in him surprised Joan. She was discovering a new Colin McKeith. She answered softly.
'Yes. I think she would—IF she really loved him.'
'What I haven't been able to make out is whether she did care—does care—for that chap. You see, that would make a difference.'
'A difference! How? What do you mean?'
'I mean that I don't believe I should feel about her as I do if I wasn't going to meet her. Look here, Joan, you've as good as told me—and if you hadn't, I'd be pretty thick-headed not to have put two and two together—that the Luke of her letters is Sir Luke Tallant, our new Governor. Well, if she was staying with him in London, and his wife is a friend of hers, why shouldn't she come and stay with them out here?'
The idea had already presented itself to Mrs Gildea, but she tried not to show that it had, or that there had ever been any question of the sort in Bridget's mind. Colin had not read the opening sheet of her letter.
'I suppose more unlikely things than that have happened,' Joan said neutrally. 'But really, Colin,' she went on with strenuous emphasis, 'I can't understand this phase of you. You—a hard-headed Bushman, to be dreaming romantic dreams and falling all of a sudden over head and ears in love with—with a figment of your imagination—just because you happen to have read by mistake some sentimental outpourings of a woman you know nothing about and who would never forgive me if she knew I'd let you see her letter.'
'She won't know—You have my word of honour that I'll never give you away over that letter—not under ANY circumstances, so you can set your mind at rest on that score, Joan. And as to my falling in love with—a figment of my own imagination'—he spat the words out savagely—'we'll see how far your remark is justified when She does come out and I recognise her—as I am convinced I shall do directly I set eyes on Her.'
Mrs Gildea burst into rather hysterical laughter, which manifestly offended Colin McKeith.
'We'll drop the subject, please,' he said stiffly. 'And now, Mrs Gildea, I'm quite at your service for any information you desire about the Big Bight country and the probability of a Japanese invasion so soon as our future Commonwealth comes to crucial loggerheads with the Eastern Powers on the question of a strictly White Australia.'