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Then she got up.

She stumbled, but she was on her feet again by the time Roper dismounted. He ran forward, and his eyes were two fierce blue slits.

‘Top marks for quick recovery but bottom marks for disobedience, Brown,’ he said, ‘and that’s where I’d like the marks to be. I expected you to be killed at least.’

‘I’m all right,’ she said unsteadily.

‘Mind if I check?’

‘I’m all right.’ Georgina stepped back. T knew what I was doing, I knew I couldn’t wear him out, so—so I came off.’

It was a lie, but he must have decided to accept it.

‘Then top marks, as I said,’ Roper drawled, ‘though you could have fooled me with that fall. If you feel up to it, we’ll head home now. I’ll call the flying doctor and have him look you over.’

‘I don’t need any doctor looking me over,’ she gasped.

‘But I want him to. How do you think I’ll feel if you sue me for damages in a month or two?’

‘I won’t. I’m all right, Mr Roper.’ To show him Georgina crossed to Ribbons and mounted ... and it was the hardest thing she had done in her life.

‘Point taken,’ drawled Roper. ‘You’re all right, He mounted Gibraltar, raised his whip to his cattlemen who now had the mob in full control, and they began the trek back.

Every inch of the way was a torment to Georgina, she had never felt more sick, more sad, or more sorry for herself in all her life. But she bit her lip and made herself do it, and even talked brightly as she proceeded along a track that never seemed to end.

It did end eventually, of course, and as they started through the last patch of scrub, Roper said: ‘I think you should come up to the homestead.’

‘No, thank you, sir.’ Apart from longing to close the door on him, on everybody and everything, Georgina felt she could not have lasted any longer than the time it took to reach the hut.

‘You didn’t let me finish, Brown. Not for any medical attention, seeing you’re so averse to it, but for a long hot bath. You seem sound in limb, but you must be bruised. I can’t see you standing under the tank stand and getting any benefit there, you want something to lie in. A supply of boiling balm, or at least I find it that after a trek.’

A hot bath! Georgina felt herself yearning—even aching —to accept the offer. And why not? Baths were taken behind closed doors, or presumably they were, even here. ‘Well, sir ’ she said weakly.

‘Good. You can strip off and lie in there for an hour. I'll even bring your meal in if it’s too good to leave.'

‘If
you don’t mind I’ll just take the hot bath and then come back to bed,’ she said quickly.

‘They’re your bruises, Brown,’ Roper shrugged. ‘Incidentally, I have a good medicine chest. Just shout out and I’ll show you what a layman can do in the absence of a doc.’

‘I’m sure you can, but I’m all right.’

‘Methinks the—young man doth protest too much, Roper drawled. ‘It would be no trouble, and I’m up in medical know-how. You have to be out here.’

Wishing now she had never accepted the offer of the bath, Georgina murmured something back and they went on to the homestead.

Mrs Willmott fussed around with towels and soap, plying more than was needed.

‘What a pity you’re not a girl,’ Roper drawled. ‘I know Willy. I bet she has some bath salts stacked away somewhere.’

Georgina did not reply. There was only one thing on her mind. Had the door a key?

It was the first thing she looked for, and after she had locked herself in she gave herself up to the luxury of hot water, hot water all around her, not just applied with a sponge from a basin. She had several darkening spots that promised to turn into passable bruises, and a few scratches, but apart from these, and an exhausted feeling as though she had been put through a mangle, she had come off lightly.

She lay back and fairly wallowed. It was only when there was a tap on the door and a ‘Are you drowned in there?’ that she realised how long she had stayed. Regretfully she got out.

She towelled herself leisurely, looking with distaste at her crumpled pants and crushed overshirt. All at once she found herself longing for a girl’s dress, pink for preference, with little buttons and a few bows ...

The shrill of a telephone broke into her thoughts.

At first she took no notice of the ring, no notice of Mrs Willmott answering. Then, insidiously, as though she could not escape it, she listened.

‘Yes?’ said Mrs Willmott.

After that: ‘Yes, they are here.’

Next: ‘No, I’m afraid I couldn’t at the moment, it’s been a field day today and the bath was the first order— No, there’s no connection to the bathroom.’ (That was accompanied by Mrs Willmott’s snort.)

‘Yes, that can be done. Your number, miss?’—Miss, trembled Georgina.

‘The message will be passed on,’ Georgina heard Mrs Willmott say. ‘Good day.’

The phone went down and with its descent came Mrs Willmott’s: ‘Are you out yet, George?’

Georgina came into the hall.

The first thing she noticed was that Larry Roper was stretched in an easy chair within easy listening distance of the phone; the second thing was that he was looking at her closely. So he had learned something! He would have been near enough to the connection to hear every word.

But it seemed it was not that, or if it was he didn’t say so. Instead he drawled: ‘You do clean up well, George, you look a different colour.’

Above his head was a wall mirror, and Georgina saw herself in it, scrubbed and pink and not at all as she wanted to be in the presence of this man.

‘If we’d known you were finished, George, you could have taken your call yourself.’ It was Mrs Willmott. Roper was still estimating her.

‘A call for me?’ she asked.

‘From a young lady,’ Mrs Willmott smiled archly. ‘She said she was your stepsister. Now that’s a change from a cousin, I thought.’ A laugh.

‘She is a stepsister,’ Georgina said bleakly. What had Joanne had to say?

Then it came to Georgina that Mrs Willmott was still calling her George, so evidently Joanne had not asked for her by name.

‘Are you sure
I
was wanted?’ she dared.

‘Oh, yes, quite sure. “Is George there?” she said.’

‘Yes,’ Georgina agreed, for she could see it all now, or at least she could piece together what Mrs Willmott had heard, and that had been Joanne emphasising the name that she had given her stepsister in derision. ‘You’re George, not Georgina,’ she had flung at her.

It had evidently deceived Mrs Willmott, but what of the mighty Roper, lounging back in his chair now and listening to it all, wearing that faintly derisive, contemptuous face he frequently put on?

‘She’ll ring again,’ said Mrs Willmott. ‘Unless,' arch again, ‘you want to ring her first.’

‘No.’

‘That’s the way, George,’ came in Larry Roper idly, ‘play hard to get. All females have only one thing in mind really, and that’s that plain gold ring. I give her five minutes to ring you.’

‘Then I won’t be here.’ But even as she said it, Georgina knew she would
have
to be here. So far Joanne had ruined nothing, but if she was put off a second time ...

‘Any bruises?’ Roper asked without much interest, evidently bored with the phone topic.

‘A few.’

‘Strategic places?’ He yawned.

That, thought Georgina icily, means what you call strategic places.

‘I’ll mend,’ she evaded.

‘Make sure of that.’ He was getting up. With luck he would be out of earshot by the time Joanne rang again. She could manage Mrs Willmott but not him.

At that moment the phone shivered, then began to shrill again. This time Roper leaned over and answered it.

‘Yes, Roper’s. Yes, right here.’

He turned and handed the receiver to Georgina. ‘It’s for you again, George.’

Georgina took up and cradled it, then she looked at him significantly and waited. He did not move. After all, why should he? It was his house.

‘Go ahead, George,’ he prompted blandly.

Wretchedly Georgina obeyed.

‘Yes?’ she gulped.

‘Is that George?’ Joanne’s voice came coolly, distinctively and with significance on the
George
, over the wire.

‘Yes. Is it Joanne?’ Georgina asked shakily.

‘Of course. Who else? What tricks are you up to now, George?’

‘No tricks. I came on here from Windmill Junction.’

‘Yes, I’ve discovered that, but I had to go to that godforsaken hole to find out. When I heard nothing from you I rang Windmill, and when that store bumpkin told me you’d moved on but he didn’t know where, I went up and put the question a little more strongly to him.’

‘But Bill didn’t know where,’ Georgina protested.

‘He did by the time I put him through a few hoops. He remembered sending a letter for you. He said it was just after a ’

‘Yes,’ Georgina came in quickly before Joanne could finish, after an unsuccessful phone call.

‘So I put two and two together and knew it had to be there. I knew you had no other contacts. Well, enough of how and where—what’s more like it, when?’

‘When?’

‘Yes, when. There’s a little matter of some money owing to me, George, and running away isn’t going to get you out of it.’

‘Joanne, the last thing I intended was to cheat you! ’

‘I must say it didn’t look like that when you exchanged the caravan for a bag of groceries.’

‘Bill tuckered me, and the van wouldn’t sell, Joanne,’ Georgina said firmly.

‘But the other things—say a manuscript and a typewriter?’

‘I can explain all that.’

‘You’d better pay, not explain, George.’

‘I will, Joanne, I’ll be sending you a postal order.'

‘It had better be soon. Very soon. I’m needing that money. Why’—curiosity in Joanne’s voice now—‘did you choose to go out there?’

‘To avoid going back to Sydney.’

‘But why
there,
particularly? I suspect you, George, you’ve always had schemes in your head. What’s so attractive up there?’

‘Just the things I like,’ said Georgina, ‘you know how I love the inland.’

‘Humph! All right then, the cash, George, otherwise I’m coming after it. That, and to find out how a feller like you ticks. Incidentally, I’m beginning on the money side immediately by reversing my charges to you on this call. See you, George.’

Joanne’s receiver went firmly down. Georgina put her own receiver back more slowly.

‘I’ll go now, Mr Roper,’ she said.

‘Not so fast,’ he detained her.

‘You mean the reverse charges? Joanne said she was doing that. I’ll pay for them, of course.’

‘Of course, but still not so fast. I think you should stop for a bite, Brown. One way and another it’s been quite a day for you, hasn’t it?’ His face softened. ‘I don’t think you’d feed yourself properly if you went back.’

‘I would, sir. Anyway, what I most want to do is go to bed.’

‘You can do that here. Willy will love it. And there’s always a spare pair of pyjama pants.’

Georgina swallowed at the pants but kept her face immobile, or she tried to. ‘I would prefer to go to the hut,’ she said.

He shrugged. ‘Oh, very well, Brown. I’ll have one of the men drive you down. I’m too tuckered myself.’

‘A walk would take some of the stiffness off me, do me good,’ Georgina offered.

‘Have it your own way. You appear to be doing that, anyhow, by that conversation just now. I had to hear it.
Do
you owe money?’

‘No. I mean well—yes.’

‘Which?’ he insisted.

‘Which?’

‘You do owe money or you don’t owe money? Yes? No?’

‘Yes,’ Georgina said miserably.

‘Always pay your debts, George.'

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Also while you are employed by me, obey orders. I haven’t spoken about that performance of yours today, I thought you’d had enough. But anything you’re suffering now is entirely your own fault. When I told you to move back I meant move back. Except that I didn’t have time to administer it, I would have seen that you did it.’

‘Administer what?’ she asked.

‘What you’ve obviously never had and should have. You look incredulous, but I assure you I still would have,
and
in front of the men. Indeed, if I hadn’t, they would have themselves. They couldn’t afford not to. You don’t play around with a mob, it’s like playing with death. Yes, Willy?’ The housekeeper had come in.

‘I thought if George wouldn’t stay that at least he’d take this hamper.’ Mrs Willmott put down a laden bag beside Georgina.

‘Thank you,’ Georgina said, not far from tears. She wondered what the mighty Roper would say if he found a fat droplet trickling down her cheek.

‘With a bag like that you’ll have to be taken,’ Roper was sighing resignedly. ‘I’ll do it.’

‘But ’ she protested.

‘Get out and get in and shut up,’ he advised.

Georgina did just that.

To her surprise, for she had expected more questioning, Roper dropped her at the hut and at once turned the car back to the homestead. Relieved, Georgina shut the door behind her, and was in bed in an incredibly short time. She slept at once, and she slept well into the next morning. At last she woke up, rose, splashed water on her face, got into fresh jeans and clean loose shirt and brewed coffee.

She was on the second cup when Roper knocked on the door. She could see no car and no horse, and, following her glance, he told her he had walked. All geologists, he reminded her, have to know how to walk.

‘What do you want me to do today, Mr Roper?’ Georgina asked docilely.

‘Nothing, you can catch up with your study. I told you that you would have spare time in the ad. Yes, get on with that thesis. Iain Sutherland, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I’ll probably not need you for several weeks, Brown. As a matter of fact I’ll be away for that length of time myself. Now, about that phone call last night.’

‘Yes, Mr Roper. I must pay you.’—Out of what? Georgina thought bleakly, for there was very little in her purse.