Callander and the Captain,--as he
had always repelled those who had attempted to control him,--still he
knew that they had been right. Such an intimacy as this could not be
wise, and its want of wisdom became the more strongly impressed upon him
the nearer he got to shore, and the more he felt that when he had got
ashore he should not know how to act in regard to her.

The intimacy had certainly become very close. He had expressed his
great admiration, and she had replied that, 'had things not been as they
were,' she could have returned the feeling. But she did not say what the
things were which might have been otherwise. Nor did she seem to attempt
to lead him on to further and more definite proposals. And she never
spoke of any joint action between them when on shore, though she gave
herself up to his society here on board the ship. She seemed to think
that they were then to part, as though one would be going one way, and
one the other;--but he felt that after so close an intimacy they could
not part like that.

Chapter VIII

Reaching Melbourne

Things went on in the same way till the night before the morning on
which they were to enter Hobson's Bay. Hobson's Bay, as every one knows,
is the inlet of the sea into which the little river runs on which
Melbourne is built. After leaving the tropics they had gone down south,
and had encountered showers and wind, and cold weather, but now they had
come up again into warm latitudes and fine autumn weather,--for it was
the beginning of March, and the world out there is upside down. Before
that evening nothing had been said between Mrs Smith and John Caldigate
as to any future; not a word to indicate that when the journey should be
over, there would or that there would not be further intercourse between
them. She had purposely avoided any reference to a world after this world
of the ship, even refusing, in her half-sad but half-joking manner,
to discuss matters so far ahead. But he felt that he could not leave
her on board, as he would the other passengers, without a word spoken
as to some future meeting. There will arrive on occasions a certain pitch
of intimacy,--which cannot be defined as may a degree of cousinship,
but which is perfectly understood by the persons concerned;--so close
as to forbid such mere shaking of the hands. There are many men, and
perhaps more women, cautious enough and wise enough to think of this
beforehand, and, thinking of it, to guard