The Boss of Taroomba Part 10

"Well, I wish you wouldn't bother about it. I wish you wouldn't bother about yourself."

"When I am bad I am horrid," he said, with a wry smile, "and that's now."

"No, I tell you I like it. I never know where I've got you. That's one reason why you're so interesting."

His face glowed, and he clasped her with his glance.

"How kind you are!" he said, softly. "How you make the best of one, even at one's worst! But oh, how bitterly you make me wish that I were different!"

"I'm very glad that you're not," said Naomi; "everybody else is different."

"But I would give my head to be like everybody else--to be hail-fellow with those men out at the shed, for instance. _They_ wouldn't have stood still this morning."

"Wouldn't you as soon be hail-fellow with me?" asked the girl, ignoring his last sentence.

"A million times sooner, of course! But surely you understand?"

"I think I do."

"I know you do; you understand everything. I never knew anyone like you, never!"

"Then we're quits," said Naomi, as though the game were over. And she closed her eyes. But it was she who began it again; it always was.

"You have one great fault," she said, maternally.

"I have a thousand and one."

"There you are. You think too much about them. You take too much notice of yourself; that's your great fault."

"Yet I didn't think I was conceited."

"Not half enough. That's just it. Yet you _are_ egotistical."

He looked terribly crestfallen. "I suppose I am," he said, dolefully.

"In fact, I am."

"Then you're not, so there!"

"Which do you mean?"

"I only said it to tease you. Do you suppose I'd have said such a thing if I'd really thought it?"

"I shouldn't mind what you said. If you really do think me egotistical, pray say so frankly."

"Of course I don't think anything of the kind!"

"Is that the truth?"

"The real truth."

(It was not.)

"If it's egotistical to think absolutely nothing of yourself," continued Naomi, "and to blame yourself and not other people for every little thing that goes wrong, then I should call you a twenty-two-carat egotist. But even then your aims and ambitions would be rather lofty for the billet."

"They never seemed so to me," he whispered, "until you sympathized with them."

"Of course I sympathize," said Naomi, laughing at him. It was necessary to laugh at him now and then. It kept him on his feet; this time it led him from the abstract to the concrete.

"If only I could make enough money to go home and study, to study even in London for one year," murmured Engelhardt, as his eyes drifted out across the plains. "Then I should know whether my dreams ever were worth dreaming. But I have taken root out here, I am beginning to do well, better than ever I could have hoped. At our village in the old country I was glad enough to play the organ in church for twelve pounds a year.

Down in Victoria they gave me fifty without a murmur, and I made a little more out of teaching. Oh! didn't I tell you I started life out here as an organist? That's how it was I was able to buy this business, and I am doing very well indeed. Two pounds for tuning a piano! They wouldn't credit it in the old country."

"The man before you used to charge three. A piano-tuner in the bush is an immensely welcome visitor, mind. I don't think I should have lowered my terms at all, especially when you have no intention of doing this sort of thing all your days."

"Ah, well, I shall never dare to throw it up."

"Never's not a word I like to hear you use, Mr. Engelhardt. Remember that you've only been out here three years, and that you are not yet twenty-six. You told me so yourself this morning."

"It's perfectly true," said Engelhardt. "But there's one's mother to consider. I told you about her. I am beginning to send her so much money now. It would be frightful to give that up, just because there are tunes in my head now and then, and I can't put them together in proper harmony."

"I should say that your mother would rather have you than your money, Mr. Engelhardt."

"Perhaps so, but not if I were on her hands composing things that n.o.body would publish."

"That couldn't be. You would succeed. Something tells me that you would.

I see it in your face; I did this morning. I know nothing about music, yet I feel so certain about you. The very fact that you should have these ambitions when you are beginning to do well out here, that in itself is enough for me."

He shook his head, without turning it to thank her by so much as a look.

The girl was glad of that. Though he had so little confidence in himself, she knew that the dreams of which he had spoken more freely and more hopefully in the morning were thick upon him then, as he sat in the wicker chair and looked out over the plains, with parted lips and such wistful eyes that Naomi's mind went to work at the promptings of the heart in her which he touched. It was a nimble, practical mind, and the warm heart beneath it was the home of n.o.ble impulses, which broke forth continually in kind words and generous acts. Naomi wore that heart upon her sweet frank face, it shone with a clear light out of the fearless eyes that were fixed now so long and so steadily upon the piano-tuner's eager profile. She watched him while the shadow of the building grew broader and broader under his eyes, until all at once it lost its edges, and there were no more sunlit patches on the plain. Still he neither moved nor looked at her. At last she touched him on the arm. She was sitting on his right, and she laid her fingers lightly upon the splints and bandages which were her own handiwork.

"Well, Mr. Engelhardt?"

He started round, and she was smiling at him in the gloaming, with her sweet warm face closer to his than it had ever been before.

"I have been very rude," he stammered.

"I am going to be much ruder."

"Now you are laughing at me."

"No, I am not. I was never farther from laughing in my life, for I fear that I shall offend you, though I do hope not."

He saw that something was upon her mind.

"You couldn't do it if you tried," he said, simply.

"Then I want to know how much money you think you ought to have to go home to England with a clear conscience, and to give yourself heart and soul to music for a year certain? I _am_ so inquisitive about it all."

She was employing, indeed, and successfully, a tone of pure and indefensible curiosity. He thought for some moments before answering.

Then he said, quite innocently: