The Boss of Taroomba Part 15

"Until you know what?" said Engelhardt, who did not like being interrupted.

"Who it's all about--who _she_ is!" cried Naomi, inquisitively.

"Who--she--is," repeated the piano-tuner, talking aloud to himself.

"Yes, exactly; who _is_ she?"

"As if it mattered!" Engelhardt went on in the same aside. "However, who do _you_ say she is?"

"I? She may be his grandmother for all I know. I'm asking you."

"I know you are. I was prepared for you to ask me anything else."

"Were you? Then why is she such an obstinate old party, anyway? She won't hear and she won't know. What will she do? Now it seems that you can't even make her cry! 'She will not weep' was where you'd got to. As you seem unable to answer my questions, you'd better go on till she does."

"I'm so likely to go on," said Engelhardt, getting up.

Naomi relented a little.

"Forgive me, Mr. Engelhardt; I've been behaving horribly. I'm sorry I spoke at all, only I did so want to know who she was."

"I don't know myself."

"I was sure you didn't!"

"What's more, I don't care. What _has_ it got to do with the merits of the poem?"

"I won't presume to say. I only know that it makes all the difference to my interest in the poem."

"But why?"

"Because I want to know what she was like."

"But surely to goodness," cried Engelhardt, "you can imagine her, can't you? You're meant to fill her in to your own fancy. You pays your money and you takes your choice."

"I get precious little for my money," remarked Naomi, pertinently, "if I have to do the filling in for myself!"

Engelhardt had been striding to and fro. Now he stopped pityingly in front of the chair in which this sweet Philistine was sitting unashamed.

"Do you mean to say that you like to have every little thing told you in black and white?"

"Of course I do. The more the better."

"And absolutely nothing left to your own imagination?"

"Certainly not. The idea!"

He turned away from her with a shrug of his shoulders, and quickened his stride up and down the veranda. He was visibly annoyed. She watched him with eyes full of glee.

"I do love to make you lose your wool!" she informed him in a minute or two, with a sudden attack of candor. "I like you best when you give me up and wash your hands of me!"

This cleared his brow instantaneously, and brought him back to her chair with a smile.

"Why so, Miss Pryse?"

"Must I tell you?"

"Please."

"Then it's because you forget yourself, and me, too, when I rile you; and you're delightful whenever you do that, Mr. Engelhardt."

Naomi regretted her words next moment; but it was too late to unsay them. He went on smiling, it is true, but his smile was no longer nave and unconsidered; no more were his recitations during the next few hours. His audience did her worst to provoke him out of himself, but she could not manage it. Then she tried the other extreme, and became more enthusiastic than himself over this and that, but he would not be with her; he had retired into the lair of his own self-consciousness, and there was no tempting him out any more. When he did come out of himself, it was neither by his own will nor her management, and the moment was a startling one for them both.

It was late in the afternoon of that same Wednesday. They were sitting, as usual, in the veranda which overlooked not the station-yard but the boundless plains, and they were sitting in silence and wide apart. They had not quarrelled; but Engelhardt had made up his mind to decamp. He had reasoned the whole thing out in a spirit of mere common-sense; yet he was reasoning with himself still, as he sat in the quiet veranda; he thought it probable that he should go on with his reasoning--with the same piece of reasoning--until his dying hour. He looked worried. He was certainly worrying Naomi, and annoying her considerably. She had given up trying to take him out of himself, but she knew that he liked to hear himself saying poetry, and she felt perfectly ready to listen if it would do him any good. Of course she was not herself anxious to hear him. It was entirely for his sake that she put down the book she was reading, and broached the subject at last.

"Have you quite exhausted the poetry that you know by heart, Mr.

Engelhardt?"

"Quite, I'm afraid, Miss Pryse; and I'm sure you must be thankful to hear it."

"Now you're fis.h.i.+ng," said Naomi, with a smile (not one of her sweetest); "we've quarrelled about all your precious poets, it's true, but that's why I want you to trot out another. I'm dying for another quarrel, don't you see? Out with somebody fresh, and let me have s.h.i.+es at him!"

"But I don't know them all off by heart--I'm not a walking Golden Treasury, you know."

"Think!" commanded Naomi. When she did this there was no disobeying her.

He had found out that already.

"Have you ever heard of Rossetti--Dante Gabriel?"

"Kill whose cat?" cried Naomi.

He repeated the poet's name in full. She shook her head. She was smiling now, and kindly, for she had got her way.

"There is one little thing of his--but a beauty--that I once learnt,"

Engelhardt said, doubtfully. "Mind, I'm not sure that I can remember it, and I won't spoil it if I can't; no more must you spoil it, if I can."

"Is there some sacred a.s.sociation, then?"

He laughed. "No, indeed! There's more of a sacrilegious a.s.sociation, for I once swore that the first song I composed should be a setting for these words."

"Remember, you've got to dedicate it to me! What's the name of the thing?"

"'Three Shadows.'"

"Let's have them, then."

"Very well. But I love it! You must promise not to laugh."

"Begin," she said, sternly, and he began: