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Then she saw him take a step towards her, and she felt such a strange largeness in her heart that she knew she either had to step forward, too ... or step back.

She stepped back.

‘I did frighten you.’ His voice derided her now.

‘No.’

‘I think so. You’re scared.’

'I’m not! ’ she denied.

'Then why are you withdrawing?’

‘I’m not.’

'Then you’re not advancing, are you ? This is advancing.’

Before Paddy could realise what he was doing, he was pulling her to him and kissing her. Kissing her in a manner that left no indecision that she had been kissed. Yet there was no fulfilment to the kiss, and there was no emotion. He—he was giving her a lesson, that was how it felt. At last he let her go, and she went and stood by the table.

‘What was that for?’ she asked jerkily.

‘Do you have to have a reason? Did you ... at Pelican Beach?’

‘I didn’t... we didn’t...’ But she did not go on. What was the use ... ever ... with a man like this ?

‘Aren’t you finished yet?’ she asked.

— ‘I’ve checked what has to be checked and picked us some fruit.’

‘Then you have finished.’

‘It all depends,’ he drawled, ‘on what you expected me to do.’

Paddy felt like retorting:

‘I expected at least for you not to lose our first footing of friendship. We had it for a moment when you entered the house. Why did you do what you just did?’

Instead she said:

‘When you’re ready, I am.’

Magnus hesitated, hesitated for such a brief second it might not have been hesitation at all, then he led the way to the door. It was only as she was descending the steps that Paddy noticed the hamper—a well-packed picnic hamper. She even could see a bottle of wine. Well, if he had wanted to eat down here, why hadn’t he said?

She crossed again to Donna.

The climb up again was hazardous, but Paddy took it well. She had other things on her mind, and that helped. They reached the top and began the canter over the plateau. As they passed Standen, a figure emerged from one of the outbuildings, and even across the paddock Paddy saw that it was Kip.

Kip did not recognise her in any way, and Paddy did the same with him. She found herself quite enjoying the conspiracy, even though it was foreign to her nature. Anything,
anything,
she was smouldering, to confound or annoy or—or hurt this hurting man.

‘You know, Travis, for all that I passed it over yesterday I still rather suspected that you’d met Norris.’ Magnus was a little ahead of her and he tossed it back at Paddy.

‘Then you suspected wrongly,’ she lied.

‘Yes, and that suits me. Standen and Yoothamurra have no time for each other. When Norris left us for them he knew that.’

‘Interesting,’ said Paddy.

He firmed his lips at her polite impoliteness, but when they reached the house, he spoke again.

‘Something else interesting. I brought it from the plantation house. My mother’s old banana cookbook. As you’re a woman I thought you might like to take a look.’

As you’re a woman.
Paddy stiffened. What else ‘as a woman’ was she expected to accept? A man taking a step towards you and kissing you, then laughing ... not literally but still laughing ... in your face?

Had that been simply because she was a woman? To his warped way of thinking a woman to be taught a lesson? Was it because of Jerry?

Oh, Jerry, she thought wistfully, remember September, remember spring, everything young and untried and uninvolved? Not like this. But that was you, Jerry, not your brother.

She dismounted and left Donna in Magnus’s care and went into the house.

The
cookbook could have been a portent of what was to come, but Paddy was not to meet that situation until a week later.

During that week she got to know her family, from the usual wards’ distrust of anyone outside their tight circle to their inherent thrift. Yes, thrift. Thrift was something they all eventually achieved. House-mothers and house-fathers perforce preached it—they had to. Every cent saved meant more wards, or more care for the existing ones, it was pumped into the children as soon as they arrived and every day after. Paddy smiled fondly and knowledgeably when she saw the pickaback soap. No wastage when a cake of soap grew thin, the thin wedge was pressed on to a new cake. It was always thus. She was looking at the three colours of the present soap when Magnus David strolled in one morning. Whatever else he had come to say was brushed aside.

‘What in Betsy is that?’ he demanded.

‘Pickaback soap.’

‘Pickaback soap! A new product?'

‘As old as the hills,’ Paddy assured him.

'The hills here are very old, the terrain has been established as the oldest in the world.’

Then still as old, for I guess there were orphans at the time of the first Java men.’

‘And they economized with pickaback soap?’

‘Yes. It’s one of the many things that’s instilled at an early age, as is turning off unnecessary lights, for instance, using half the amount of toothpaste.’

‘It’s a pity,' Magnus grunted, ‘other economies were not introduced. Like fillet steak and scrag, for example.'

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Richard was sent up from the cold storage with the household meat. It’s also his duty to feed the various domestic animals.’—There were several dogs and cats.

‘I think I can guess what’s coming,' grinned Paddy. ‘In his inattention or absorption with something else ’

‘Inattention is my word.’

‘He gave the cats and dogs the fillet and left you the scrag. Well, no worry to us, Mrs Dermott brings our meals ready to be heated.’

‘But not mine.’

‘No, your man does that—Come to think of it, Paddy had never seen any man.'

‘When I don’t eat down at the stables, I fend for myself.’

‘But Mrs Dermott said ’

‘I know, but I didn’t want a woman fussing around.'

‘But you’ll have to, won’t you, when you marry.’

‘At the present I’m not contemplating marriage.' he assured her.

‘I see. Well, I’m sorry I can’t help you with the scrag, but I’m sure slow cooking would do the trick. Perhaps your mother’s book ’

‘It deals with bananas. I thought you would have discovered that by now.'

‘I’ve been very busy,' she said coldly. ‘Would you like to take one of Mrs Dermott’s ready-to-be-heateds from us?’

‘No, I’ll eat down at the stud again. I’ll have to quite soon, anyway. We are expecting a blessed event. How do you feel about parent participation?’

Paddy thought she knew what he was about to say, but chose to feign dumbness.

‘The stallion is going to be present, then?’ she asked archly.

‘I’m intending to have the boys there. Not parents, but so involved they could be considered close relatives at least.’ He awaited her comment.

She nodded, deliberately not paying it much interest, but he repeated his question, evidently needing a definite answer.

‘Participation?’ he asked.

‘If you say so.’

‘I do say so. It’s never too early to sort out the boys from the men.’

‘It’s usually the other way about, and I don’t agree that any who fail your test are less male for that.’

‘Spoken admirably, Miss Travis, but I didn’t mean it quite so stringently. What I want them to realise is that it’s not all roses.’

‘Roses?’ she queried.

‘They’re keen now, but eight nights in a cold paddock, and it can get cold up here, can sometimes break down enthusiasm.’

‘Eight nights?’ Paddy gasped.

‘Little Lulu, our mother-to-be, took that long last time, took eight chilly, watching nights. I’m hoping for a quicker performance this go, but it still remains to be seen. I believe some of them could change their minds.’

‘Embrace bananas instead, you mean ? That would suit you, wouldn’t it? You would have both projects safely staffed.’

Magnus was looking coldly across at her from the other side of the boys’ bathroom where he had found her tidying up after the morning showers. Paddy still held the pickaback soap.

‘Has anyone ever told you,' he asked, ‘that you are an exceptionally objectionable female?’

‘Yes—you. Just now.'

‘No one else?’

‘Give them time,' she said insolently, and went to flounce out, then stopped. He stood blocking the door and his feet were set very firm.

‘Do you know what I’d like to do to you?’ he said. ‘I’d like to turn the shower on you good and hard.'

‘Cold, of course.’

‘Of course.’

Then why not the horse pool?’ she suggested. 'The water’s there already, and I could finish with a sand roll.’

‘That's only for the thoroughbreds, Miss Travis.' He had stepped forward as he spoke and it allowed a few inches for Paddy to escape. She did so, but just. She went into her own unit and turned the key. A hateful man! ‘Only for the thoroughbreds.’ Why didn’t he reach his decision on her ... his pre-decision ... and get the agony over? Found waiting, she thought, and suddenly wanting herself, wanting companionship not criticism, she decided to try to see Kip Norris again. Kip had wanted them to meet up, he had told her so. He had not said when, but he would be looking out for her, she felt sure of that. She would wait until she heard Magnus David leave the house, until she made sure by peering out that he was making for the stud, then she would go down the track. Several minutes later it happened like that.

Paddy went straight up the track she had taken before, but she walked much further this time, past the fence

that marked the boundary between the two studs ... the opposition, Magnus had called it ... then to a point where the Standen stables began. Scarcely had she reached the first one than Kip Norris emerged like a spontaneous Jack-in-the-box.

‘Padua! ’ he greeted.

He looked very handsome with the sun shining on his thick fair hair but more than his outstanding good looks Paddy was warmed by his bright, welcoming smile. After Magnus David’s dourness it came like sun after rain. With the smile came his extended hand and when Paddy put her own into the well-manicured one ... how nice to care about your appearance in an outdoor job like his!... she did not mind that he kept it there.

Smiling back at him, she said: ‘You appeared out of that bam as though you’ve been waiting all the week.’

‘I have.’

‘Oh, Kip!’

‘Well, perhaps not, Padua, but I have looked out every day.’

‘I did go past once,’ she told him.

‘With David. I was glad you made no sign of recognition. You were a smart girl.’

‘I had to make no sign—he’d questioned me, and I had said I hadn’t met you.’

‘Very smart girl.’ He still held her hand.

‘It seemed awful, though,’ she confessed, ‘I mean, I don’t tell lies.’

‘You don’t have to tell me that with a face like yours.’

‘And what is that?’

‘I told you last time—all the flowers of spring.’

‘Oh, Kip!’ she said again, but secretly she was flattered and pleased.

‘Were you coming from the plantation?’ Kip asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Lucky man, Magnus, not only a leading stud but a profitable banana farm. And all to himself, now.’

‘Unhappily,’ inserted Paddy.

‘Yes, unhappily,’ Kip was quick to agree. ‘However,’ he added, ‘his brother’s passing did fill Magnus’s coffers to overflowing.’

‘Well, perhaps it did, yet perhaps not.’ Paddy did not know what prompted that remark, for the subject was certainly something she never thought about.

‘What do you mean, Padua?’ Kip asked.

She tumbled out her story. Well, why not? Kip was her friend, and she had no other friend here. Mrs Dermott was nice but busy with her own life, and the boys were just that, boys. In her excuses to herself for spilling something that probably would have been better not spilled, Paddy did not look up at Kip Norris. If she had she might have seen an estimating look in Norris’s eyes.

‘Left to you! ’ he marvelled.

‘Yes. We ... Jerry and I ... met at Pelican. I never guessed, I never knew ...’

‘No, of course not.’ His reassurance came warm and comforting, so different from Magnus David’s cold suspicious comments. ‘How could you know? But what now?’

‘Nothing now, of course. He ... Magnus David ... despises me. I just can’t fathom why he bothers to pretend to look me over, unless it’s curiosity. His decision was made before he even saw me.’

‘You could object, you know, and I think you’d have a damn good case. After all, a man’s last will and testament ’

‘But Jerry was a child and I was little more than one.’

‘But a clever legal man ’

‘Kip, I don’t want the wretched money,’ she sighed. ‘Not now, but you may one day. You may even marry someone to whom a helping hand in the way of a nice round sum could put him in business, begin the pair of you on the road to affluence, help all round.’

‘I suppose you’re right, but ’

‘I am right.’

‘But I still wouldn’t consider it.’

‘No, of course not, never you, All the Flowers of Spring,’ Kip said quickly and smoothly. ‘Let’s leave that mundane subject and talk about something very near to my heart—no, not you.’ He smiled charmingly. ‘You are, you know, already you are, but I would never tell you so this soon.’

‘Oh, Kip, you are a fool! ’ Paddy laughed.

‘A nice fool, I hope?’

‘Very nice. But what, apart from me’ ... a quirk ... ‘is near to your heart?’

‘The boys and girls back there.’ Kip nodded to Yoothamurra. ‘Somehow I’ve never got to love this bunch as I loved that. No, Padua, not the hands, the boys and the girls with
four
feet, not two. The stallions, geldings, mares, colts, fillies. How are they?’

‘Fine,’ Paddy assured him.

‘And the blind mare, has she foaled yet?’

‘Oh, yes, her daughter is quite leggy.’

‘And ... the precious firstborn? The house speciality? Son of Darkness?’

‘Oh, no, not that name!’ Paddy was shocked.

‘No, of course not.’ Again Kip came in at once. ‘I never liked it, anyway. I wanted another name, but David said ’