she said with a laugh. "Something solid and substantial
about it. You can always be sure about it."

She went back to her book, but she was not reading. Presently she saw
him raking about among a sheaf of waratahs with which she had hidden the
ugly old grate. He looked up exultantly.

"Six cigarette ends! That's enough to make three if I roll them thin.
Lord be thanked I've some cigarette papers."

There was something so pathetic about this that she forgot to feel
contemptuous about it. Before another hour had gone he had smoked the
three resurrected cigarettes as well as the last remaining new one. She
made more tea. It was five o'clock, the hour when all the sun's heat in
Australia seems to gather itself together and pour downwards, drawing up
the earth heat to meet it. Louis looked fagged and worn. She re-dipped
sheets in cold water and hung them up to cool the room a little; her
hair was damp, the atmosphere of the room quite motionless.

"Do you think I could smoke tea?" said he, plaintively. "I believe
people do sometimes."

He took the tea from the caddy, rubbed a little in his palm and made a
cigarette with it. It drew with difficulty; after the first bitter whiff
he threw it away impatiently and sat on the edge of the bed, his face
buried in his hands.

She dashed out of the room and went down to the dining-room. Four of the
"young chaps" were playing their interminable game of cards at the
table. A three months' old niece of Mrs. King, whose mother was sitting
with her sister in the bedroom talking, lay in a dressbasket on the
table being guarded by the men.

She blinked knowingly at Marcella, who bent over her. Two men lay asleep
on chairs, one on the couch. They were all in various stages of undress,
and had towels round their necks with which they mopped their damp
foreheads. They looked up and greeted her as she came in.

"Have a game, ma?" asked Dutch Frank.

"No, thank you. I've come to beg, borrow or steal. Can someone lend or
give me a few cigarettes? My poor man has run short. It's too hot to go
out. At least, I'm going to stay in."

They all had any amount of cigarettes; the piles of ends in the hearth
made her think contemptuously of Louis scrabbling in the dust for them.
Next minute she was sorry for her unkindness. The boys each pressed a
packet of ten upon her; when she tried to choose between them they
insisted that they would be jealous unless she took them all. Louis's
face, when