“Ever so much obliged,” she said, pausing in her talk and looking at him at last, as he drew the cloak from her shoulders.

“You should be,” he responded, straightening himself out.  “It’s quite a labour unhooking one of you fine ladies.”

“Don’t call me names, Harry, or I’ll get somebody else to take it off next time.  I’m afraid it’s love’s labour lost.  It’s quite chilly, and I think I’ll wrap it round me.”

“Well, if you will go about half undressed,” he commented, putting the cloak round her again.

“Half undressed!  You are silly.  The worst of this room is there’s no fire in it.  I think one needs a fire even in summer time, when it’s damp, to take the chill off.  Besides, as Nellie says, a blazing fire is the most beautiful picture you can put in a room.”

“Isn’t Nellie coming to-night?” asked the man who smoked the wooden pipe.

“Why, of course, Ford.  Haven’t I told you she said on Thursday that she would come and bring the wild untamed bushman with her?  Nellie always keeps her word.”

“She’s a wonderful girl,” remarked Ford.

“Wonderful?  Why wonderful is no name for it,” declared Stratton, lighting a cigar at one of the piano candles.  “She is extraordinary.”

“I tell Nellie, sometimes, that I shall get jealous of her, Harry gets quite excited over her virtues, and thinks she has no faults, while poor I am continually offending the consistencies.”

“Who is Nellie?” enquired the ugly little man, turning round suddenly from the book case which he had been industriously ransacking.

“I like Geisner,” observed Mrs. Stratton, pointing at the little man.  “He sees everything, he hears everything, he makes himself at home, and when he wants to know anything he asks a straightforward question.  I think you’ve met her, though, Geisner.”

“Perhaps.  What is her other name?”

“Lawton—­Nellie Lawton.  She came here once or twice when you were here before, I think, and for the last year or so she’s been our—­our—­ what do you call it, Harry?  You know—­the thing that South Sea Islanders think is the soul of a chief.”

“You’re ahead of me, Connie.  But it doesn’t matter; go on.”

“There’s nothing to go on about.  You ought to recollect her, Geisner.  I’m sure you met her here.”

“I think I do.  Wasn’t she a tall, between-colours girl, quite young, with a sad face and queer stern mouth—­a trifle cruel, the mouth, if I recollect.  She used to sit across there by the piano, in a plain black dress, and no colour at all except one of your roses.”

“Good gracious!  What a memory!  Have you got us all ticketed away like that?”

“It’s habit,” pleaded Geisner.  “She didn’t say anything, and only that she had a strong face, I shouldn’t have noticed her.  Has she developed?”

“Something extraordinary,” struck in Stratton, puffing great clouds of smoke.  “She speaks French, she reads music, she writes uncommonly good English, and in some incomprehensible way she has formed her own ideas of Art.  Not bad for a dress-making girl who lives in a Sydney back street and sometimes works sixteen hours a day, is it?”