I could not help quoting the old proverb, but Nick only laughed.
“Unlucky in love! Looks like it, eh? Nan and I are a living disproof of all the saws. Ah, my Nan shall drive down the Ladies’ Mile in her carriage yet, and I shall perhaps fulfil what has been—next to Nan—my life’s dream!”
“What’s that?” I said.
“To be a power, Curran—a power for good in that terrible city—that Babylon in which I was born. I want to do something for the poor and the vicious; I want to help to save such helpless, deserted children as were Nan and I from the fate that, but for God’s mercy, might have been Nan’s fate and mine. I want to get into the English Parliament, Curran; I want to plead the cause of the friendless—to get protection for the children—justice for the hireling.”
There was a great solemnity in Nick’s tone, and a curious prophetic look in his eyes.
He had been talking it all over with Nan, he said. They were to be married in two months’ time, which was the limit she had fixed, and as soon as he was in a position to make a good start in the old country, he would leave Australia. And he would leave no stone unturned to clear himself of the charge, which would, he knew, cling to him through life, and hinder the useful career, which he might otherwise carve out for himself.
But I am getting away from the races. It was after Nick had won his race that a rather handsome man of a coarse, underbred type, well dressed, and looking what the Australians call “flash,” was brought up by a friend of Nan’s, and introduced as Mr. Tempest.
I was standing near Nan at the time. Nick had left her to see after something about his horse, and she was talking gaily to a little knot of her Eungella friends, elated at the good luck that had befallen Nick, and looking cool and fresh and surprisingly beautiful in her white dress which she had put on in honour of the occasion.
I had been noticing this “Mr. Tempest.” He was a recent arrival at the diggings, and I did not like his manner or appearance. He was loud, boastful, and vulgar, with a veneer of smartness—and an occasional lapse into ways, that would have disgraced a navvy.
Just now he was on his good behaviour. He had evidently been greatly struck with Nan, who was certainly the belle of the Stand. He made her a very low bow and said a few words of compliment.