'It seemed to me a kind of witchcraft,' he said.... 'I should think you might go on the stage and make a fortune like Melba.'
She laughed. 'Why my voice is a very poor thing. And besides, I could never depend upon it.'
'Everything just how you feel at the time, eh?' he said. 'You wouldn't care what you did if you had a mind to do it.'
'No,' she answered. 'I shouldn't care in the least what I did if I had a mind to do it.'
There was the faintest mimicry of his half Scotch, half Australian accent in her voice—a little husky, with now and then unsuspected modulations. She looked at him and the gleam in her eyes and her strange smile made him stare at her in a sort of fascination. Joan knew those tricks of hers and knew that they boded mischief. She got up at the moment saying that people were going and that she must bid Lady Tallant good-night.
Then the Premier's wife came up shyly; she wanted to thank Lady Bridget for her singing. It had been as good as the Opera—They sometimes had good opera companies in Leichardt's Town, etcetera, etcetera.
Lady Bridget made the prettiest curtsey, which bewildered the Premier's wife and gave her food for speculation as to the manners and customs of the British aristocracy. She had always understood you only curtsied to Royalty. But she took it as a great compliment and never said anything but kind words about Bridget ever after.
Colin McKeith escorted Mrs Gildea to her cab and as they waited in the vestibule, obtained from her a few more particulars of Lady Bridget O'Hara's parentage and conditions. But he said not a word implying that he had discovered her identity with the author of the typed letter.
'I'll come along to-morrow morning if I can manage it, and tell you about Alexandra City and the Gas-Bore,' he said carelessly as she shut the fly door. Joan wondered whether he had caught Lady Biddy's parting words in the drawing room.
'If Rosamond doesn't insist on my doing some stuffy exploration with her, I'll bring my sketches some time in the morning, Joan, and you can see whether any of them would do for the great god Gibbs.'