‘Heard he had bought a terribly overrated place on the Darling,’ said Selmore. ‘Very sharp practice of Parklands. Too bad of him—too bad, wasn’t it, now?’
‘Was it as good a bargain as Gammon Downs, Mr. Selmore?’ inquired Antonia, with a faint resemblance to former archness that lit up her melancholy features. ‘I am afraid there is not much to choose between you hardened pioneers when there is a newly-landed purchaser signalled.’
‘Really, Miss Frankston, really!’ replied Selmore, with a fine imitation of the chivalrous and disinterested; ‘you do some of us injustice. In all this dreadful season, I assure you, the creeks at Gammon Downs are running like English brooks, and the grass is green—absolutely green!’
‘Why, what colour should it be, Mr. Selmore—blue or magenta? But you know that I am an Australian, and therefore must have learned in the many conversations which have passed in my hearing about station matters that “green grass country” is generally spoken disrespectfully of, and “permanent water” is not everything. But we will not continue the rather worn subject.‘
‘I fancy Neuchamp can’t be doing so badly,’ cut in Hardy Baldacre, with his customary assurance, ‘for I hear he is going to be married.’
‘Married!’ echoed Antonia, as she felt the tide of life arrested in her veins for one moment, and, with the next, course wildly back to her beating heart. ‘Married, Mr. Baldacre, and why not? But papa often hears from him, don’t you, pappy, and he never mentioned it.’
‘Mentioned it! I should think not,’ growled Paul, with a leonine accent, as scenting danger. ‘I heard from him, let me see, a month or two back. I don’t believe a word of it. Who to?’
‘Well, I saw the young lady,’ persisted Baldacre, wholly unabashed, while he noted Antonia’s pale and unmoved features. ‘I went up in the coach with her, half way to Rainbar. She’s a cousin of his own; same name. Just out from England, and ever so rich.’
‘How the deuce should she go alone up to Rainbar?’ said Paul, full of doubt and dread. ‘Surely we should have heard of her, when she landed.’
‘She told me that she made up her mind suddenly to come out to him—did not let him know, and only stayed a week in Sydney, at Petty’s.’