out into the garden, and wriggled up and looked down at his face below her in the dusk.
“Dane.”
“Well?”
“I am getting a bit sick of the paper.”
A smile flashed across his eyes. “I’ve been wondering what you thought you were getting out of it now.”
“Well, that’s it. I think I’ve learned all I can from it.”
“I should think you had. If you want to do original writing you ought to get at it. You have to practise writing as you do the piano. That ought to give you some idea of what is before you, especially if you want to do a novel.”
She looked down at him. She had expected him to ask at once when she would come to live with him.
“Yes, I suppose it isn’t as easy as I think it is,” she said slowly. Then she looked past his head into the shadows deepening in the garden.
“I’ve decided this week that I’ll go to Sydney for the winter. I want to see about getting my poems published over there. Would you like to come with me?” He said it very lightly, as if he were proposing a walk round the house.
Valerie sat up and stared down into his face.
“You are going to Sydney—in any case?”
“Why certainly. I want to arrange about getting some more work in Australian papers.”
She continued to stare at him.
“What’s the trouble, Miss Freedom?”
“You would go away?”
“On business, dear. I have to. And I’m asking you to come. Of course, you’re a free agent ———”
Her hand smothered the rest, and half fiercely, half
