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Gemma looked at her bewildered. “But why should it be me? Bruce is in this, too.”

“I just told you. It would suit all of us, you, Bruce, me, for the affair to dwindle out without any heroics.”

“How would it suit me?”

"I told you that, too. You just don’t want to leave up here. Not deep down, Gemma. No, I didn’t take psychology or anything like that, I just know If there’s a showdown, you’ll have to leave. If there’s a gradual easing, you can bow gracefully out and go across to your friends the Mitchells, who, I’ve been told, are expected back at the end of the month.”

“You have it all worked out,” said Gemma drily.

“I've always worked things out. We’ll keep on as we are now, and finish the affair in a nice civilized manner. Mrs. Mannering, I know, would be embarrassed with any other way, and even though she obviously wants me for Bruce, for my potential as a future mistress of Mannering Park as well as my money, she would still hate a scene. Bruce would, too. He’s that type.”

“The girls—”

“Vida is weak as water, and Janet—well, she married the foreman.” Deborah yawned, smiled blandly and left Gemma staring dazedly after her.

But not for long.

I may be naive, but there comes a time when there’s an end to naiveté, Gemma said, dazed no longer, and she straightened her shoulders.

She packed her bags. She got out her car. She went across to Mrs. Mannering and bade her a polite goodbye . . . and had the satisfaction of seeing Mrs. Mannering for once not able to find any words. She left a message for Bruce, just a very brief one.

“Best wishes. Gemma."

She did not seek out Vida, and she had already finished with Deborah. She would have liked to have said goodbye to Jim. Janet she could not bear to think about. She took out a scarf that Janet once had admired, and running back to the house she placed it' on Janet’s dressing table. Thank heaven the girl was not there. Gemma turned and ran back again.

She stopped at Bruce’s villa to see Hannah. Hannah was in tears because she had learned that she would probably not be needed in the future.

“Who said so, Hannah?”

“That was what upset me. She did.”

“She?”

“That Miss Stockley staying at the big house. Where does she think she comes in ?”

“I believe she does come in, Hannah, but not to worry, we’ll think of something.” Gemma kissed her, and left.

Although the Mitchells were still away, she intended calling in before she hit south. I must see Harriet, she thought foolishly,
\
must touch that india rubber nose just once again. .

She went through the Mannering Park gate ritual, then she went through the Boothagullagulla gate ritual, only in reverse.

The homestead was shut up. Even Ludy did not appear to be there. Gemma left the car on the drive and hurried towards the barns.

“Harriet!" she called.

At once she heard movement, and someone put a head over the lower door of the first outbuilding.

“No Harriet here,” called a voice. “She lives in the end villa. But would I do instead? Name of Tim.”

The Territorian pulled the bolt of the door and stepped outside. He looked Gemma up and down and his glance was searching, probing.

“You forgot,” he said at last, the glance reaching, then focusing on Gemma’s left hand, “to return the ring.”

GEMMA stood aghast. She
had
forgotten, she saw.

But how had this man known she had left Mannering Park for all time, had closed the chapter called Bruce?

“Up here a wind will blow even a change of mind,” Tim Torrance grinned. “And yours is more than that, isn’t it, it’s a change of heart. Come in and tell me all about it.” He pointed to the bam behind him, and Gemma saw that there were a couple of chairs, a table with some cups, a jug.

“The Mitchells—” she asked.

“Are still away. Chris would like me to use the homestead when I’m around these parts, but I prefer here. Tea?”

“Thank you.” Gemma sat down. She was still stunned about the ring. How could she have not remembered that most important thing of all?

“What can I do about it?” she fretted.

“The ring?”

“Yes.”

“Keep it,” he advised.

“Oh, no!”

“Then I’ll get one of the stockies to ride over with it for you. I’d go myself, only I doubt if I’d be welcome at the Establishment.”

“Can you blame Mrs. Mannering?”

“Yes. Personally I’ve always liked penguins better than doves. I believe most people prefer black and white to all white.”

“I meant—”

“I know what you meant. But better to scotch something right from the beginning than to build up a maiden’s hopes. Or” . .. slyly ... “her mother’s hopes. As regards the penguin, you must admit I stood out that right.”

“Like the devil.” Janet had called him Diablo.

“I was different,” he gunned.

“You were abominable!”

“What else did you expect from a thirty-six-wheeler? You must admit it took courage.”

“Your courage didn’t last, evidently. You left at once.”

“I had seen,” he smiled, “a certain faintly recalled figure.”

“So you deserted?”

“What good would I have done?”

“You could have supported me,” said Gemma.

“When you were going to deny everything? Oh, yes, you were. Supporting a denial would have only emphasized the fact that Bush Betty was spreading the truth.”

“You were very wrong with her, too. She’s extremely rich, comes from a good family and her name is Deborah Stockley.”

He whistled. “So she’s a Stockley.”

“Now
she is.”

“Meaning?”

“That she won’t be for long.”

“Then Mrs. Bruce Mannering.”

“Yes.”

“Then you’re not to be Mrs. Mannering junior? You’re not Future Mrs. Mannering?”

“No.”

“Interesting.” He made tea.

“What brought it all about?” he asked quite conversationally as he poured and milked and sugared. It could, Gemma thought, have been a discussion on the weather. “Did Miss Stockley spill the beans on what happened that night?”

“Nothing happened.”

“But did she?”

“No.”

“Then—?”
^:

“We just—well— Bruce and I simply—”

He nodded calmly. “You shouldn’t have started it in the first place.” He produced a packet of biscuits. “So it’s all over,” he said.

“It’s all over,” Gemma agreed.

“What next, then?”

“Back to Sydney.”

“Via the Mitchells?” His brows had risen disbelievingly on her.

“I just wanted to see Harriet once again.”

That seemed to silence him a moment, almost as though he had expected a different answer, and evidently he had, for he said: “I thought you might have learned I was here.” When she didn’t change her reply, he laughed drily, and asked:

“Will you get your old job back?”

“I don’t think so. It was a highly competitive post, and there were plenty ready to step into my shoes.”

“So it’s the Positions Vacant column?”

“You could say that.”

“Only I'm not saying it.” He had taken out his makings and was rolling a cigarette. “But I am saying this: Instead of returning to Sydney, instead of looking up a room, then a job, how about considering me?”

“You?” she gasped.

“Yes.”

In what category'? You must already have a bookkeeper, a secretary.”

I have a whole staff of them,” he agreed.

“Then?”

“Matrimony,” he said.

Again Gemma cried: “You!"

“Am I that impossible?”

“No ... I mean, certainly not... I mean, many woman ...”

“But not you?”

She did not answer that. Instead she said: “Why this stampede all of a sudden?"

“Well, it couldn't be before, could it, not when you were the Future Mrs. M.”

“But a thing like this takes—well, takes prethought.”

Tim Torrance exhaled. “I can assure you that I have pre-thought.”

“Is it to spite the Mannerings?” she asked curiously.

“Who are they?”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous, you know what I mean.”

“Yes, I know, but I find your question in bad taste. I don’t hold spite, and anyway, the Mannerings wouldn’t rate even that much thought,”

“But there must be a reason.”

“I love you passionately.”

“Now you’re in bad taste!” she snapped.

“Please yourself about that. I’m told passion does enter into it, but if you’d prefer high regard—”

“Oh, don’t be silly!”

“I’m not being silly, Gemma, I’m meaning every word, every syllable of every word. I want to marry you.”

From somewhere inside her, for Gemma was not conscious of speaking the words herself, a voice,
her
voice, asked: “And for how long?”
_#

“What do you mean?” His eyes were narrowed on her now.

“For how long do you want to marry me? As long as you wanted to marry—Jenny Lawson?”

He had put the cigarette down, so there was no weave of smoke to narrow his eyes, yet the eyes still remained slitted, estimating.

“What do you know about Jenny Lawson?” he demanded.

“I know she broke up her marriage for you, but after it was done that you didn’t want her any more.”

“So you know that,” he said. He spoke very quietly, but Gemma could see that he was deeply, coldly angry, angrier than she had ever seen him before, and he was, she had learned by now, an easily angered man.

“Forget what I just said, Miss Glasson.” He had risen sharply from the table, so sharply that the chair he had been sitting on fell back to the bam floor. He made no attempt to pick it up.

“You’re like the rest of them,” he said witheringly. “Ears sticking out to hear the worst of a man, tongue on the ready to flay him to pieces, claws sharpened. But what am I complaining about ? I should be thankful to you for letting me see your true colours before it was too late, the colours of all the female sex.”

“Including Jenny?”

“No, as a matter of fact,
ex
cluding Jenny."

“Then why didn’t you marry her?”

“Why didn’t you find out the story first before you came to your own conclusion ? And I thought—” He walked to the door of the bam, then walked back.

“Yes?”

He laughed sourly. “I thought you were different. I said to myself: ‘Here's one who’s different.’ You’re no different. You’re run-of-the-mill. You may be ex-Mannering Park, but you're still Imbued with their poison. Where’s your ring?”

“Here.” She was pulling it off, putting it on the table. “What are you going to do with it?” she asked. “You did say you would tell one of the men—”

“I’m going to return it personally. After all, it’s a little too valuable to send over in a cowboy’s pocket. No, I’ll find Bruce and give it to him myself, I’ll hand it over and say: ‘Miss Glasson regrets, but by heaven, man,
you
shouldn’t regret. You should kneel down and thank your lucky stars!” He had not got the last word out before Gemma, too, had risen. The blow she caught him across the cheek surprised herself as well as Tim Torrance. She had never done anything like this in all her life, and she was deeply ashamed.

He had taken a step forward, and she braced herself. She had asked for this. She had acted like a fishwife.

Then he was taking her in his anus instead, taking her as Gemma had never been taken in anyone’s arms, and certainly not in Bruce’s, in all her life.

“I think,” he said, and his voice was thick, “that this will hurt you much more than what you were expecting.”

His lips came down on Gemma’s.

Of course she had been kissed before. What woman of twenty-six hasn’t? But this time it was entirely different. There was a fierce gathering to him. There were hard urgent arms. There was a curious sense of time racing up to her, covering all the usual preliminaries in the duration of one close fierce second. There was a wonder, even a marvel.

Then he released her, released her so abruptly that she stepped quickly back.

But Tim Torrance was not there to see her fall. He had left the barn, climbed into his truck and driven away from Boothagullagulla. Though Gemma did not hear him. When she had stepped back, she had caught her head on a protruding ledge, and after that she heard nothing more.

It was dark when Gemma opened her eyes, only to shut them quickly with pain. Her head ached abominably, and she felt weak and giddy and sick.

She lay there till morning. Somewhere outside the bam, she heard Ludy calling the chickens, and she tried feebly to shout out. But nothing passed her lips. She heard Harriet being talked to later in the day, but Harriet’s barn was too far away for any call to penetrate. Gemma relapsed into semi-consciousness again.

It was not until the next morning that she was found. A stockman, needing something in that particular barn, came in, stared incredulously, then raised the alarm.

Afterwards Gemma was told how the flying doctor had been brought in, how he had examined her but found nothing broken, How she had been transferred to the homestead but not taken to the base hospital, since in the F.D.’s opinion moving her right away might entail a risk.

All this went over Gemma's head, her confused, only semi-aware head. She was conscious of a nurse the doctor had brought in, of Ludy coming anxiously to the bedside every few minutes. Once ... or so she believed . . . she saw Janet.

Then at last clarity came back, and on the same morning came the Mitchells. Isabel Mitchell, whom Gemma had never seen before, yet could have, Gemma thought, having seen Chris, came running forward and at once claimed Gemma as her responsibility.

From then on the pain for Gemma eased. The confusion stopped.

She was with friends.

The Mitchells were wonderful people. Never once was Gemma asked why she had been found on the floor of the barn, what had happened to make her fall as she had. If anyone else had been there with her.

When Gemma offered a sketchy explanation, it was accepted readily. The Mitchells never mentioned Tim Torrance, so Gemma never mentioned him, either. She knew he would have to come to Boothagullagulla some time the future, so decided she would wait until then. When the Territorian truck did arrive a week later, but with one of the Territorian drivers, Gemma knew she could be spared the ordeal indefinitely, especially when Isabel said: