The young man who sat beside her laughed. "There must be, or you never would have admitted it," he said. "Still, I'm not sure you would find many folks who would believe you here." "One has to be candid occasionally," and Barbara made a little gesture of weariness. "There is still another hour of it, but, I sincerely hope, not another cornet solo. What comes next? We were a little late, and nobody provided me with a programme. They are inconsistent. Milly, I notice, has several." The man opened the paper which a girl Barbara glanced at handed him. "A violin solo," he said. "I think they mean Schumann, but it's not altogether astonishing that they've spelt it wrong. A man called Brooke is put down for it." "Brooke!" said Barbara, a trifle sharply. "Where does he come from? Do you know him?" "I can't say I do----" the man commenced reflectively, and stopped a moment when he saw the little smile in the girl's brown eyes. "What were you thinking?" "I was wondering whether that means he can't be worth knowing." "Well," said the man, good-humoredly, "there are, I believe, one or two decent folks in this city I haven't had the pleasure of meeting, but you were a trifle too previous. I don't know him, but if he's the man I think he is, I've heard about him. He came down from the bush lately, and somebody put him on to Naseby, the surveyor. Naseby's busy just now, doing a good deal for the Government--Crown mineral lands, I think, or something of that kind--and he took the man. I understand he's quite smart at the bush work, and Naseby's pleased with him. That's about all I can tell you. You're scarcely likely to know him." Barbara sat silent a space, looking about her while the amateur orchestra chased one another through the treacherous mazes of an overture. The handsome building was well filled, but there were one or two empty places at hand, for the man who had sent her there had taken a row of them and sent tickets to his friends, as was expected from a citizen of his importance. It was, in the usual course, scarcely likely that she would know a man who had lately been installed in a subordinate place in a surveyor's service, for her acquaintances were people of position in that province, and yet she had a very clear recollection of a certain rancher Brooke who played the violin. "I once met a man of that name in the bush," she said, with almost overdone indifference. "Still, he is scarcely likely to be the same one."