“_Facon de parler_,” she said, laughing rather stiffly. Somers was silent, and kept silent till the end. He was thankful that Kangaroo was fighting the battle this time. Their host sent them home in his motor-car. Neither of them had anything to say. Then, as Harriet shut the door of Torestin, and they were quite alone, she said: “Yes, he’s right. I absolutely believe in him. I don’t care _what_ he does with you.” “I do, though,” said Somers. The next day they went to Mullumbimby. And the day after that, each of them wrote a letter to Kangaroo. “Dear Kaiser Kangaroo,” began Harriet, “I must thank you very much for the dinner and the violets, which are still quite fresh and blue in Coo-ee. I think you were very horrid to me, but also very nice, so I hope you don’t think the worst of me. I want to tell you that I _do_ sympathise, and that I am awfully glad if I can be of any use to you in any way. I have a holy terror of ants since I heard you, but I know what you mean by the fire. Lovat will hand over my portion when he comes to see you. But I shall make myself into a Fire Brigade, because I am sure you will be kindling fires all over everywhere, under the table and in the clothes-cupboard, and I, poor domestic wretch, shall have to be rushing to put them out. Being only a poor domestic female, I really don’t feel safe with fires anywhere except in fire-places and in grates with hearths. But I do want you to know you have my sympathy--and my Lovat.” She then signed herself Harriet Somers, and felt even more fluttered than when she had signed the marriage register. She received for answer: “Dear Mrs Somers: I am much honoured and very grateful for the assurance of your sympathy. I have put a one-and-sixpenny government stamp under your signature, to make your letter a legal document, and have further forged the signatures of two witnesses to your deed of gift of Lovat, so I am afraid there is no court of law in New South Wales in which you could now substantiate a further claim over him. I am sorry to take this mean advantage over you, but we lawyers know no scruples. “I should be more than delighted if I could have the honour of entertaining once more in Sydney--say next Thursday--a beautiful person and remarkable woman (one and the same individual) who tells me to my nose that I am a Jew and that my name, instead of Benjamin, should be Abraham. Do please come again and call me Abraham’s Bosom, but don’t fail to bring your husband, for the simple look of the thing.” “The Kangaroo is a fighting beast, I believe,” said Somers, looking at Harriet and laughing. He was not sorry when for once some other person gave her a dig. “I think he’s rather foolish,” she said briefly.