'What is it? I'd cut off my right hand if that would be of any use to you. Good Lord! That does sound cheek! Only—you know—I'm big enough to bully the whole of Leichardt's Land from the Governor down—and I'd do it if you wanted me to. Just tell me what's worrying you?'
'It's everything—the whole set of conditions from the day I was born into them.'
'Conditions are easy enough things to break, if you're determined to do it. Look here—talk it out.... you can trust me.'
Then she recklessly set the flood gates open—laughed with tears in the laughter; drew a tragically amusing picture of her life—her anomalous position, her dependence, her hatred of the pretences, the shifts, the sordid bravado by means of which her impoverished Gaverick relatives clung on to their social birthright, the toadying of the Dowager, the worldly admonitions of Rosamond Tallant and her set—she used some of the phrases he had himself read in that letter. Had he been in any doubt as to its authorship that doubt must now be at rest. But he would never tell her of that episode. For one thing, his promise to Joan bound him. Like a stab came the remembrance of that man of whom Biddy had written—the man towards whom she had confessed a violent attraction—and who had behaved as a cad and a fortune-hunter would naturally behave. That he could have weighed money in the balance with THIS! She could not have cared for the fellow, or he MUST have thrown over everything else for her. Was it possible that she had cared—that she still cared?
'Tell me,' he asked hoarsely. 'Is it that you are fretting after somebody over there who—someone you can't marry? There must have been a lot of men in your life. Perhaps there was one who—whom you—loved.'
His voice dropped, as it had a way of doing when he touched the sacred subject.
'There have been a lot of men,' she admitted frankly. 'But there has never been one true Man among them. I've never really in my heart wanted to marry any of them, if that's what you mean—I don't like marriage—OUR system of marriage—a bargain in the sale shop. So much at such a price—birth, position, suitability, good looks—to be paid for at the market value. Or else it's just because the man happens to have taken a fancy to one, and while the fancy lasts doesn't think whether or not it's a fair bargain—on either side. I've seen people fall madly in love and marry like that. Then before very long the love turns to hate and it's a case for the Divorce Court.'
'Nothing of that is—love—not as I—and you—understand it.'
She gave him one of her inscrutable looks and then turned again to the stars. There was silence; Colin thought she must hear his heart thumping, but she seemed lost in her dreams. He put out his big hand and timidly, reverently, took hers, crushed verbena and all, as it lay on the balustrade. It rested like a prisoned bird within his; he could feel the nervous twitch of the little fingers.
'There's another system of marriage—a better one, I think—where the man doesn't ask for anything but the right to love until—until he has compelled the woman's love in return.'