'If I happen to have drawn them into what Rosamond used to call my mysterious sphere of influence—which I seem to do without knowing it. I'm not sure, though, that either Rosamond or Luke approve of my drawing the Leichardt's Town people into my mysterious sphere of influence.'
'I think, if you ask me, that Lady Tallant is a bit of a cat, and Sir Luke more than a bit of a prig.'
'No. You mustn't say a word against them.' It was not in Bridget to be disloyal. 'They've given me the time of my life.'
'When you smile like that, you remind me of a photograph of a picture I've seen—a woman, I don't remember her name.'
'Mona Lisa—La Gioconda. I know—I've been told that before.'
'Yes, that's it. Mona Lisa. People have written about her.'
'Reams. Some day I'll read you what Pater says of her, unless you've read him already—by your camp fire.'
For he had talked to her, as he had talked to Joan Gildea, about his readings and his dreamings under the stars in the Bush.
'Eh! you shall teach me about these new writing chaps. I don't understand your up-to-date theories. I've always gone in for plain facts—standard reading—history—great thoughts of great minds—old books brought out in people's editions. I'm up a tree—downright bushed when you begin upon your queer ideas—all those new-fangled religions and notions—Theosophy, spooks—about the earth being alive, and thoughts making a sort of wireless telegraph system—I do believe in that, though—to a certain extent. And your Brotherhood of Man! Bosh! We're all like a lot of potatoes thrown into a sack and shaken about by circumstance. And the big ones come to the top, and the little ones—because they're little—sink to the bottom. I've always wanted to be one of the big potatoes, and mean to be.'
Bridget laughed. She had a ringing laugh when she was amused.