We missed Nick somehow in that walk; and it wasn’t for some time—not till we got back near the stand—that we saw him coming from it. His face was quite white, and I could see that he was deeply moved. He came up to Nan.
“Nan,” he said, hoarsely, “I’ve seen him, I’ve recognized him—our enemy. And you’ve been speaking to him! Nan, I forbid you to do it. He will work us harm again, as he did before. And he has been talking about you—chaffing—pretending that he has made a conquest. I won’t have it, Nan.”
I never before saw Nick angry. He was almost angry with Nan, and when she told him that she had promised to dance with Rummles, forbade her sternly. But Nan tightened her lips. She had her own design, I knew. I wished that she would not try to carry it out.
There was a coolness, it was very evident, between Nick and Nan that evening. The Postmaster’s wife told me they had almost had words on the way to the ball, because Nan wanted to do something that he wouldn’t allow.
The Postmaster’s wife was curious about it, and there was talk in the ballroom, for a good deal of interest attached to Nick just now, because of his splendid find and his rapidly increasing fortune.
Nan looked lovely. She had a soft colour, and her white dress set off her beautiful eyes and hair.
It was quite a grand affair, the ball. You wouldn’t expect there could be anything so fine at a place like Eungella Diggings. The stewards had sent blacks into the scrub, and they had brought back branches of treefern and bunya cones and creepers, and what with flags and one thing and another, it was as pretty a sight as you could fancy.
The Baronet had turned out in swell evening clothes, and so had the “Honourables”—though nobody knew how they had managed it, as they had only brought their swags on their backs to the diggings. And they had got out all their London manners, and danced unlike the other men.
The Gold Commissioner was at the ball, too, and the Police Magistrate, and we had all got ourselves up, as well as we could.
Tempest was in regular dress clothes, with a flower in his button-hole, and looked like a Strand shopman, I thought.