I never thought she had any temper different from other women;but if I'd noticed her eyes, surely I'd have seen it there.
There was something very strange and out of the way about them.
They hardly seemed so bright when you looked at them first; but by degrees, if she got roused and set up about anything, they'd begin to burn with a steady sort of glitter that got fiercer and brighter till you'd think they'd burn everything they looked at.
The light in them didn't go out again in a hurry, either.
It seemed as if those wonderful eyes would keep on shining, whether their owner wished it or not.
I didn't find out all about her nature at once -- trust a woman for that.
Vain and fond of pleasure I could see she was; and from having been always poor, in a worrying, miserable, ill-contented way, she had got to be hungry for money and jewels and fine clothes;just like a person that's been starved and shivering with cold longs for a fire and a full meal and a warm bed.Some people like these things when they can get them; but others never seem to think about anything else, and would sell their souls or do anything in the whole world to get what their hearts are set on.
When men are like this they're dangerous, but they hardly hurt anybody, only themselves.When women are born with hearts of this sort it's a bad look-out for everybody they come near.Kate Morrison could see that I had money.She thought I was rich, and she made up her mind to attract me, and go shares in my property, whatever it might be.
She won over her younger sister, Jeanie, to her plans, and our acquaintance was part of a regular put-up scheme.Jeanie was a soft, good-tempered, good-hearted girl, with beautiful fair hair, blue eyes, and the prettiest mouth in the world.She was as good as she was pretty, and would have worked away without grumbling in that dismal little shop from that day to this, if she'd been let alone.She was only just turned seventeen.She soon got to like Jim a deal too well for her own good, and used to listen to his talk about the country across the border, and such simple yarns as he could tell her, poor old Jim! until she said she'd go and live with him under a salt-bush if he'd come back and marry her after Christmas.And of course he did promise.He didn't see any harm in that.He intended to come back if he could, and so did I for that matter.Well, the long and short of it was that we were both regularly engaged and had made all kinds of plans to be married at Christmas and go over to Tasmania or New Zealand, when this terrible blow fell upon us like a shell.I did see one explode at a review in Melbourne -- and, my word! what a scatteration it made.
Well, we had to let Kate and Jeanie know the best way we could that our business required us to leave Melbourne at once, and that we shouldn't be back till after Christmas, if then.
It was terrible hard work to make out any kind of a story that would do.
Kate questioned and cross-questioned me about the particular kind of business that called us away like a lawyer (I've seen plenty of that since)until at last I was obliged to get a bit cross and refuse to answer any more questions.
Jeanie took it easier, and was that down-hearted and miserable at parting with Jim that she hadn't the heart to ask any questions of any one, and Jim looked about as dismal as she did.They sat with their hands in each other's till it was nearly twelve o'clock, when the old mother came and carried the girls off to bed.We had to start at daylight next morning;but we made up our minds to leave them a hundred pounds apiece to keep for us until we came back, and promised if we were alive to be at St.Kilda next January, which they had to be contented with.
Jeanie did not want to take the money; but Jim said he'd very likely lose it, and so persuaded her.
We were miserable and low-spirited enough ourselves at the idea of going away all in a hurry.We had come to like Melbourne, and had bit by bit cheated ourselves into thinking that we might live comfortably and settle down in Victoria, out of reach of our enemies, and perhaps live and die unsuspected.
From this dream we were roused up by the confounded advertisement.
Detectives and constables would be seen to be pretty thick in all the colonies, and we could not reasonably expect not to be taken some time or other, most likely before another week.
We thought it over and over again, in every way.The more we thought over it the more dangerous it seemed to stop in Melbourne.There was only one thing for it, that was to go straight out of the country.The Gippsland men were the only bushmen we knew at all well, and perhaps that door might shut soon.
So we paid our bill.They thought us a pair of quiet, respectable chaps at that hotel, and never would believe otherwise.People may say what they like, but it's a great thing to have some friends that can say of you --`Well, I never knew no harm of him; a better tempered chap couldn't be;and all the time we knowed him he was that particular about his bills and money matters that a banker couldn't have been more regular.
He may have had his faults, but we never seen 'em.I believe a deal that was said of him wasn't true, and nothing won't ever make me believe it.'
These kind of people will stand up for you all the days of your life, and stick to you till the very last moment, no matter what you turn out to be.
