Yes--the strange unanimity of _harmlessness_ in the crowd had a half paralysing effect on Richard. “Can it be?” he said to himself, as he drifted in the strong sun-warmth of the world after rain, in the afternoon of this strange, antipodal city. “Can it be that there is any harm in these people at all?” They were quick, and their manners were, in a free way, natural and kindly. They might say Right-O, Right you are!--they did say it, even in the most handsome and palatial banks and shipping offices. But they were patient and unaffected in their response. That was the beauty of the men: their absolute lack of affectation, their naive simplicity, which was at the same time sensitive and gentle. The gentlest country in the world. Really, a high pitch of breeding. Good-breeding at a very high pitch, innate, and in its shirt sleeves. A strange country. A wonderful country. Who knows what future it may have? Can a great continent breed a people of this magic harmlessness without becoming a sacrifice of some other, external power? The land that invites parasites now--where parasites breed like nightmares--what would happen if the power-lust came that way? Richard bought himself a big, knobbly, green, soft-crusted apple, at a Chinese shop, and a pretty mother-of-pearl spoon to eat it with. The queer Chinese, with their gabbling-gobbling way of speaking--were they parasites too? A strange, strange world. He took himself off to the gardens to eat his custard apple--a pudding inside a knobbly green skin--and to relax into the magic ease of the afternoon. The warm sun, the big, blue harbour with its hidden bays, the palm trees, the ferry steamers sliding flatly, the perky birds, the inevitable shabby-looking, loafing sort of men strolling across the green slopes, past the red poinsetta bush, under the big flame-tree, under the blue, blue sky--Australian Sydney, with a magic like sleep, like sweet, soft sleep--a vast, endless, sun-hot, afternoon sleep with the world a mirage. He could taste it all in the soft, sweet, creamy custard apple. A wonderful sweet place to drift in. But surely a place that will some day wake terribly from this sleep. Yet why should it? Why should it not drift marvellously for ever, with its sun and its marsupials? The meeting in the evening, none the less, was a wild one. And Richard could not believe there was any _real_ vindictiveness. He couldn’t believe that anybody _really_ hated anybody. There was a touch of sardonic tolerance in it all. Oh, that sardonic tolerance! And at the same time that overwhelming obstinacy and power of endurance. The strange, Australian power of enduring--enduring suffering or opposition or difficulty--just blank enduring. In the long run, just endure. Richard sat next to Jaz. Jaz was very still, very still indeed, seated with his hands in his lap. “Will there be many diggers here?” Lovat asked. “Oh, yes. There’s quite a crowd over there, with Jack.”