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come.”
    “You think so?”
    “I’m sure of it. I make a study of our weather, a close and detailed study, and all the warnings are there.”
    “You just said the Establishment,” slipped in Gemma. “You meant the Mannerings, I take it.”
    “Forgive my prattling tongue, please, I was just being a fool.” He smiled charmingly at her.
    “And yet I’ve heard such foolish talk before,” Gemma returned.
    Then take no heed. We’re all of us up here called something or other. Probably I’m Crazy Chris or Mad Mitchell.” He smiled again at Gemma, then called into the house: “How is that teapot, Ludy?”
    An aboriginal woman came down the wide front hall. Already she was laden with a tray bearing a pot, cups and a plate of scones.
    “I beat you to it, Mr. Chris,” she said triumphantly. “I saw the car coming along the track and I said to myself ‘This means tea or my name’s not Ludy’.”
    “Your name is Special Ludy, Number One Housekeeper,” praised Chris. “Leave it, Ludy, I’ll pour.”
    But Gemma did the pouring. She took over the rites, and as she did so, she felt his eyes on her, particularly pleasant eyes, she thought, very friendly, very kind, and just now very watchful.
    “What is it, Chris?” she inquired after a while, finding the steady look a little disconcerting.
    “Sorry, Gemma, but you reminded me of someone.”
    “Someone nice?”
    “The nicest.”
    “You said remind ed then isn’t she—don’t you see her now?”
    “My wife Neroli died in our first year of marriage.”
    “Oh—I’m sorry.”
    “It’s a long time ago now,” he said.
    “But still—I mean—”
    “Yes. Still that.” He nodded at Gemma, understanding what she had not said. There was a little silence.
    “Do you live here alone?” asked Gemma presently. “I mean, apart from Ludy and the other employees?”
    “My sister Isabel lives with me, only Isabel isn’t here just now. Isabel is my twin, unmarried and a wonderful person. When I see her” The last with feeling.
    “Is she away a lot?”
    “Isabel works like a beaver—no, not for herself, for others. She loves the aboriginal people and they love her. Just now she’s out on the Janana Mission while I rough it here.”
    “I can well imagine that roughing,” laughed Gemma, biting into a feathery scone.
    Chris Mitchell called to one of his stockmen who was passing to take Harriet out of the car, then let her roam. When Gemma warned that Harriet might eat his lawn, he said good, he had never been over-fond of the mower.
    “You’re a really very tolerant person,” Gemma praised. “A very welcoming one.” Then she said impulsively : “I wonder if—”
    “If?”
    “If the Establishment will be as tolerant and welcoming.” She looked directly at Chris Mitchell.
    “Look, I told you I was only being a fool when I said what I did,” he proffered anxiously.
    “Yet Establishment has been said to me before. Several times before. Why are the Mannerings called an Establishment?”
    “An establishment means a fixed state, and I guess that’s the Mannerings. Well, why not? Permanency is a very good thing.”
    “And a very rigid thing?”
    Chris did not answer. He pretended to be busy drinking. Gemma knew it was pretence because she had had her hand on the teapot before he began, since his cup, she had noticed, was empty.
    “I’m sure,” he said presently . . . and over-optimistically, or so Gemma construed it... “that your calf will be most welcome.”
    “Chris, do you always tell lies?” Gemma, more relaxed with this man than she could remember being relaxed with any man, laughed it back at him, and refilled his cup.
    "We-ell,” he avoided. He looked curiously at the calf and then back at Gemma. “Anyway, why did you bring her?” he inquired.
    “There was nowhere else to take her, and I couldn’t abandon her.”
    “No, you couldn’t do that. But why did you fetch her in the first place?”
    “But I didn’t. She was thrust on me. I