"Do you mean to say that you have never heard of the female boss of Taroomba?" said Naomi Pryse, as she led the piano-tuner across the veranda² and out into the station-yard. The moon was gleaming upon the galvanized-iron roofs of the various buildings, and it picked out the girl's smile as she turned to question her companion.  
"No, I never heard of you before," replied the piano-tuner, stolidly³. For the moment the girl and the moonlight stupefied him. The scene in the room was still before his eyes and in his ears.
 
"Well, that's one for me! What station have you come from to-day?"
 
"Kerulijah."
 
"And you never heard of me there! Ah, well, I'm very seldom up here. I've only come for the shearing⁴. Still, the whole place is mine, and I'm not exactly a cipher⁵ in the business either; I rather thought I was the talk of the back-blocks. At one time I know I was. I'm very vain, you see."
 
"You have something to be vain about," said the piano-tuner, looking at her frankly⁶.
 
She made him a courtesy in the moonlit yard.
 
"Thank you kindly⁷. But I'm not satisfied yet; I understand that you arrived in time for supper; didn't you hear of me at table?"
 
"I just heard your name."
 
"Who mentioned it?"
 
"The fellow with the beard."
 
"Prettily⁸?"
 
"I think so. He was wondering where you were. He seems to know you very well?"
 
"He has known me all my life. He is a sort of connection. He was overseer here when my father died a year or two ago. He is the manager now."
 
"But you are the boss?"
 
"I am so! His name, by the way, is Gilroy—my mother was a Gilroy, too. See? That's why he calls me Naomi; I call him Monty when I am not wroth with him. I am disgusted with them all to-night! But you mustn't mind them; it's only their way. Did you speak to the overseer, Tom Chester?"
 
"Which was he?"
 
"The one on the sofa."
 
"No, he hardly spoke⁹ to me."
 
"Well, he's a very good sort; you would like him if you got to know him. The new chum with the eye-glasses is all right, too. I don't believe those two were to blame. As for Mr. Sanderson, I wouldn't think any more about him if I were you; he really isn't worth it."
 
"I forgive him," said the musician, simply; "but I shall never forgive myself for playing the fool and losing my temper!"
 
"Nonsense! It did them good, and they'll think all the more of you. Still, I must say I'm glad you didn't dash the kerosene¹⁰ lamp in Mr. Sanderson's face!"
 
"The what?" cried Engelhardt, in horror.
 
"The lamp; you were brandishing¹¹ it over your head when I came in."
 
 
"The lamp! To think that I caught up the lamp! I can't have known what I was doing!"
 
He stood still and aghast in the sandy yard; they had wandered to the far side of it, where the kitchen and the laundry stood cheek-by-jowl with the wood-heap between them, and their back-walls to the six-wire fence dividing the yard from the plantation¹² of young pines which bordered it upon three sides.
 
"You were in a passion," said Miss Pryse, smiling gravely. "There's nothing in this world that I admire more than a passion—it's so uncommon¹³. So are you! There, I owed you a pretty speech, you know! Do you mind giving me your arm, Mr. Engelhardt?"
 
But Engelhardt was gazing absently at the girl, and the road between ear and mind was choked with a multitude of new sensations. Her sudden request made no impression upon him, until he saw her stamping her foot in the sand. Then, and awkwardly enough, he held out his arm to her, and her firm hand caught in it impatiently.
 
"How slow you are to assist a lady! Yet I feel sure that you come from the old country?"
 
 
"I do; but I have never had much to do with ladies."
 
The piano-tuner sighed.
 
"Well, it's all right; only I wanted you to take my arm for Monty Gilroy's benefit. He's just come out on to the veranda. Don't look round. This will rile him more than anything."
 
"But why?"
 
"Why? Oh, because he showed you the hoof¹⁴; and when a person does that, he never likes to see another person being civil to the same person. See? Then if you don't, you'd better stand here and work it out while I run into the kitchen to speak to Mrs. Potter about your room."
 
"But I'm not going to stay!" the piano-tuner cried, excitedly.
 
"Now what are you giving us, Mr. Engelhardt? Of course you are going to stay. You're going to stay and tune¹ my poor old piano. Why, your horse was run out hours ago!"
 
"But I can't face those men again——"
 
"What rubbish!"
 
"After the way I made a fool of myself this evening!"
 
"It was they who made fools of themselves. They'll annoy you no more, I promise you. In any case, they all go back to the shed to-morrow evening; it's seven miles away, and they only come in for Sunday. You needn't start on the piano before Monday, if you don't like."
 
"Oh, no, I'll do it to-morrow," Engelhardt said, moodily¹⁵. He now felt bitterly certain that he should never make friends with the young men of Taroomba, and shamefully¹⁶ thankful to think that there would be a set occupation to keep him out of their way for the whole of the morrow.
 
"Very well, then; wait where you are for two twos."
 
Engelhardt waited. The kitchen-door had closed upon Miss Naomi Pryse; there was no sense in watching that any longer. So the piano-tuner's eyes climbed over the waterspout, scaled the steep corrugated¹⁷ roof, and from the wide wooden chimney leapt up to the moon. It was at the full. The white clear light hit the young man between his expressive¹⁸ eyes, and still he chose to face it. It gave to the delicate eager face an almost ethereal pallor; and as he gazed on without flinching¹⁹, the raised head was proudly carried, and the little man looked tall. To one whom he did not hear when she lifted the kitchen-latch and opened the door, he seemed a different being; she watched him for some moments before she spoke.
 
"Well, Mr. Engelhardt?"
 
"Well," said he, coming down from the moon with an absent smile, and slowly.
 
"I have been watching you for quite a minute. I believe it would have been an hour if I hadn't spoken. I wish I hadn't! We're going to put you in that little building over there—we call it the 'barracks.' You'll be next door to Tom Chester, and he'll take care of you. There's no occasion to thank me; you can tell me what you've been thinking about instead."
 
"I wasn't thinking at all."
 
"Now, Mr. Engelhardt!" said Naomi, holding up her finger reprovingly. "If you weren't thinking, I should like to know what you were doing?"
 
"I was waiting for you."
 
"I know you were. It was very good of you. But you were smiling, too, and I want to know the joke."
 
"Was I really smiling?"
 
"Haven't I told you so? Have you signed the pledge against smiles? You look glum²⁰ enough for anything now."
 
"Yes?"
 
 
"Very much yes! I wish to goodness you'd smile again."
 
"Oh, I'll do anything you like." He forced up the corners of his mouth, but it was not a smile; his eyes ran into hers like bayonets.
 
"Then give me your arm again," she said, "and let me tell you that I'm very much surprised at you for requiring to be told that twice."
 
"I'm not accustomed to ladies," Engelhardt explained once more.
 
"That's all right. I'm not one, you know. I'm going to negotiate this fence. Will you have the goodness to turn your back?"
 
Engelhardt did so, and saw afar off in the moonlit veranda the lowering solitary²¹ figure of the manager, Gilroy.
 
"Yes, he sees us all right," Miss Pryse remarked from the other side of the fence. "It'll do him good. Come you over, and we'll make his beard curl!"
 
The piano-tuner looked at her doubtfully, but only for one moment. The next he also was over the fence and by her side, and she was leading him into the heart of the pines, her strong kind hand within his arm.
 
"We'll just have a little mouch round," she said, confidentially²². "You needn't be frightened."
 
"Frightened!" he echoed, defiantly²³. The hosts of darkness could not have frightened such a voice.
 
"You see, I'm the boss, and I'm obliged to show it sometimes."
 
"I see."
 
"And you have given me an opportunity of showing it pretty plainly."
 
"Oh!"
 
"Consequently, I'm very much obliged to you; and I do hope you don't mind helping²⁴ me to shock Monty Gilroy?"
 
"I am proud."
 
But the kick had gone out of his voice, and to her hand his arm was suddenly as a log of wood. She mused²⁵ a space. Then—
 
"It isn't everyone I would ask to help me in such—in such a delicate matter," she said, in a troubled tone. "You see I am a woman at the mercy of men. They're all very kind and loyal in their own way, but their way is their own, as you know. I thought as I had given you a hand with them—well, I thought you would be in sympathy."
 
"I am, I am—Heaven knows!"
 
The log had become exceedingly alive.
 
 
"Then let us skirt in and out, on the edge of the plantation, so that Mr. Gilroy may have the pleasure of seeing my frock from time to time."
 
"I'm your man."
 
"No, not that way—this. There, I'm sure he must have seen me then."
 
"He must."
 
"It's time we went back; but this will have done him all the good in the world," said Naomi.
 
"It's a pity you haven't a manager whom you can respect and like," the piano-tuner remarked.
 
Naomi started. She also stopped to lace up her shoe, which necessitated²⁶ the withdrawal²⁷ of her hand from the piano-tuner's arm; and she did not replace it.
 
"Oh, but I do like him, Mr. Engelhardt," she explained as she stooped. "I like Mr. Gilroy very much; I have known him all my life, you know. However, that's just where the disadvantage comes in—he's too much inclined to domineer. But don't you run away with the idea that I dislike him; that would never do at all."
 
The piano-tuner felt too small to apologize. He had made a deadly mistake—so bad a one that she would take his arm no[Pg 23] more. He looked up at the moon with miserable²⁸ eyes, and his brain teemed²⁹ with bitter self-upbraiding thoughts. His bitterness was egregiously³⁰ beyond the mark; but that was this young man's weakness. He would condemn³¹ himself to execution for the pettiest sin. So ashamed was he now that he dared not even offer her his hand when they got back to the veranda, and she consigned³² him to the boy in spectacles, who then showed him his room in the barracks. And his mistake kept him awake more than half that night; it was only in the gray morning he found consolation³³ in recollecting³⁴ that although she had declared so many times that she liked Monty Gilroy, she had never once said she respected him.
 
Had he heard a conversation which took place in the station-yard later that night, but only a little later, and while the full moon was in much the same place, the piano-tuner might have gone to sleep instead of lying awake to flagellate his own meek³⁵ spirit; though it is more likely that he would have lain quietly awake for very joy. The conversation in question was between Naomi Pryse and Montague Gilroy, her manager, and it would scarcely repay a detailed³⁶ report; but this is how it culminated³⁷:
 
 
"I tell you that I found you bullying³⁸ him abominably³⁹, and whenever I find you bullying anybody I'll make it up to that body in my own way. And I won't have my way criticised by you."
 
"Very good, Naomi. Very good indeed! But if you want to guard against all chance of the same thing happening next week, I should recommend you to be in for supper next Saturday, instead of gallivanting about the run by yourself and coming in at ten o'clock at night."
 
"The run is mine, and I'll do what I like while I'm here."
 
"Well, if you won't listen to reason, you might at least remember our engagement."
 
"You mean your engagement? I remember the terms perfectly⁴⁰. I have only to write you a check for the next six months' salary any time I like, to put an end to it. And upon my word, Monty, you seem to want me to do so to-night!"