“He’s a nice sort of chap,” remarked Ned, referring to George.

“Yes, he’s a great oarsman.  He rows over to see Josie.  Mrs. Stratton calls them Hero and Leander.”

“Why?  Who were they?”

“Oh!  Leander was Hero’s sweetheart and used to swim across the water to her so that nobody should see him.”

“They’re to be married, I suppose?”

“Yes, next month.”

“Those Strattons are immense—­what’s that noise, Nellie?” he interrupted himself.  A strange groaning from close at hand had startled him.

“Somebody asleep, I suppose,” she answered, more accustomed to the Sydney parks.  But she stopped while, under the umbrella, he struck a match with a bushman’s craft.

By the light of the match they saw a great hollow in the rocks that bordered on one side the gravelled footway.  The rocks leaned out and took in part of the path, which widened underneath.  Sheltered thus from the rain and wind a number of men were sleeping, outcast, some in blankets, some lying on the bare ground.  The sound they had beard was a medley of deep breathing and snoring.  It was but a glimpse they caught as the match flared up for a minute.  It went out and they could see nothing, only the faint outline of path and rock.  They could hear still the moaning sound that had attracted them.

They walked on without speaking for a time.

“How did you know the Strattons?” resumed Ned.

“At the picture gallery one Sunday.  She was writing some article defending their being opened on the ‘Sawbath’ and I had gone in.  I like pictures—­some pictures, you know.  We got talking and she showed me things in the pictures I’d never dreamed of before.  We stayed there till closing time and she asked me to come to see her.

“She’s immense!”

“I’m so glad you like her.  Everybody does.”

“Has she any children?”

“Four.  Such pretty children.  She and her husband are so fond of each other.  I can’t imagine people being happier.”

“I suppose they’re pretty well off, Nellie?”

“No, I don’t think they’re what you’d call well off.  They’re comfortable, you know.  She has to put on a sort of style, she’s told me, to take the edge off her ideas.  If you wear low-necked dress you can talk the wildest things, she says, and I think it’s so.  That’s business with her.  She has to mix with low-necked people a little.  It’s her work.”

“Does she have to work?”

“No.  I suppose not.  But I think she prefers to.  She never writes what she doesn’t think, which is pleasanter than most writers find it.  Then I should think she’d feel more independent, however much she cares for her husband.  And then she has a little girl who’s wonderfully clever at colours, so she’s saving up to send her to Paris when she’s old enough.  They think she’ll become a great painter—­the little girl, I mean.”

“What does that Josie do?”