He was dressed as a miner might be dressed who was off work and out for a holiday;—­clean, rough, and arranged with a studied intention to look as little like a gentleman as possible.  The main figure and manner were so completely those of a gentleman that the disguise was not perfect; but yet he was rough.  She was dressed with all the pretty care which a woman can use when she expects her lover to see her in morning costume.  Anything more unlike the Mrs. Smith of the ship could not be imagined.  If she had been attractive then, what was she now?  If her woman’s charms sufficed to overcome his prudence while they were so clouded, what effect would they have upon him now?  And she was in his arms!  Here there was no quartermaster to look after the proprieties;—­no Mrs. Crompton, no Mrs. Callander, no Miss Green to watch with a hundred eyes for the exchange of a chance kiss in some moment of bliss.  ’So you have come!  Oh, my darling oh, my love!’ No doubt it was all just as it should be.  If a lady may not call the man to whom she is engaged her love and her darling, what proper use can there be for such words?  And into whose arms is she to jump, if not into his?  As he pressed her to his heart, and pressed his lips to hers, he told himself that he ought to have arranged it all by letter.

‘Why Cettini?’ he asked.  But he smiled as he put the question.  It was intended to be serious, but still he could not be hard upon her all at once.

‘Why fifty thousand fools?’

‘I don’t understand.’

’Supposing there to be fifty thousand people in Sydney,—­as to which I know nothing.  Or why ever so many million fools in London?  If I called myself Mrs. Smith nobody would come and see me.  If I called myself Madame Cettini, not nearly so many would come.  You have got to inculcate into the minds of the people an idea that a pure young girl is going to jump about for their diversion.  They know it isn’t so.  But there must be a flavour of the idea.  It isn’t nice, but one has to live.’

‘Were you ever Cettini before?’

‘Yes,—­when I was on the stage as a girl.’  Then he thought he remembered that she had once told him some particular in regard to her early life, which was incompatible with this, unless indeed she had gone under more than one name before she was married.  ’I used as a child to dance and sing under that name.’

‘Was it your father’s name?’

She smiled as she answered, ’You want to discover all the little mean secrets of my life at once, and do not reflect that, in so far as they were mean, they are disagreeable as subjects of conversation.  I was not mean myself.’

‘I am sure of that.’

’If you are sure of it, is not that enough?  Of course I have been among low people.  If not, why should I have been a singer on the stage at so early an age, why a dancer, why should I have married such a one as Mr. Smith?’

‘I do not know of what sort he was,’ said Caldigate.