Dulcie (scornfully). A likely thing! Trust a free selector! Not if I know it!!! Why, what would become of us? Perhaps you'd like to see me lifting the top off a camp-oven—on a fire, under that black stump there—whilst you were—chopping—down—a—tree! ha! ha! No! (surveying her well-fitting riding-habit—her thoroughbred horse, and stroking her gloves) I seem to like this sort of thing better. I must drag on for a while with my allowance from poor old dad.
Egremont (with lofty resolve). You are heartless, Dulcie—devoid of natural affection. You laugh at my inexperience, you sneer at my poverty—let us part for ever. Go back to your father's mansion and leave me to my fate. I feel that I shall succeed, perhaps make a fortune, in the end.
Dulcie (Aside—It will be a precious long time first! What a dear, noble fellow he is—I hate to bully him!) Aloud—Come, Cecil (winningly), you mustn't be cross. I am only a poor simple girl brought up in the bush (I wonder what he is then?), but of course I know more about stock and land than you do. If we are not to be married (you see I love you a little) till you make enough to buy the ring out of this calf-paddock of yours, we may wait till we're grey! But why don't you open the letter? It might contain something of importance.
Egremont (partly mollified). I'm afraid not; merely an entreaty to return from this wild country, where there are no people fit for me to associate with, where I may starve, or be killed by blacks or wild beasts—that's the general tone of my letters of late. Ha! What is this? (Reads—Your poor Uncle Humphrey died last week; he was on bad terms with our side of the house, and has not spoken to your father for forty years; but he has left you £20,000, for which you will receive a bank-draft by this mail. Of course you will come home at once!) Of course, of course! Oh! eh! Dulcie dear? Now I shall build a house here, plant a garden, make a lakelet, sow artificial grasses, fence and subdivide,—in fact, make a paradise of these desolate, bare acres. Eventually it will be highly remunerative. But when my house is completed and furnished in accordance with modern art, you will come there to be my queen and its most brilliant ornament? (looks entreatingly at her).
Dulcie (with expression of horror). What! improve a selection? Spend thousands of pounds on it? Build a really good house and ask me to live there! Did you ever hear of Tarban Creek?
Egremont. Not that I can recall—an aboriginal name, I presume. I have caught the name of Curbin, I think. Is that a similar watercourse?
Dulcie (restraining herself). It's hardly worth explaining—a little joke of mine. But to come to business. Suppose I show you a way to invest your money—to get twenty per cent for it in a few years, at the same time to make father think you a clever, rising man—an opinion which, ahem! he does not hold at present—and lastly, to cause him to give his consent to our marriage, (coaxingly) what should you say then? Would you be willing to do what I told you?
Egremont. I always thought you as clever as you were beautiful, my own dearest Dulcie! Take me with all that is mine and do what you will.
Dulcie. Very nice—indeed flattering! How long will it last, I wonder? 'Now you lisdens do me' (as our German gardener used to say) and you will hear something to your advantage. But first promise to do what I ask—you will promise? (looking entreatingly and archly at him).
Egremont. On my honour; on the cross of my ancestor's sword—he was a Crusader.