“Come quite to like it!” Jaz smiled slowly. “Yes. I love it, Jaz. I don’t love people. But this place--it goes into my marrow, and makes me feel drunk. I love Australia.” “That’s why you leave it, eh?” “Yes. I’m frightened. What I want to do is to go a bit further back into the bush--near some little township--have a horse and a cow of my own--and--damn everything.” “I can quite understand the ‘damn everything’ part of it,” laughed Jaz. “You won’t do it, though.” “I never was so tempted in my life. Talk about Eve tempting man to a fall: Australia tempts me. _Retro me_--” Jaz was silent for a few moments. “You’d repent it, though,” he said quietly. “I’ll probably repent whatever I do,” replied Somers, “so what’s the odds. I’ll probably repent bitterly going to America, going back to the world: when I want Australia. I want Australia as a man wants a woman. I fairly tremble with wanting it.” “Australia?” “Yes.” Jaz looked at Somers with his curious, light-grey eyes. “Then why not stop?” he said seductively. “Not now. Not now. Some cussedness inside me. I don’t want to give in, you see. Not yet. I don’t want to give in to the place. It’s too strong. It would lure me quite away from myself. It would be too easy. It’s _too_ tempting. It’s too big a stride, Jaz.” Jaz laughed, looking back at Richard’s intense eyes. “What a man you are, Mr Somers!” he said. “Come and live in Sydney and you won’t find it such a big jump from anywhere else.” “No, I wouldn’t want to live in Sydney. I’d want to go back in the bush near one of the little townships. It’s like wanting a woman, Jaz. I want it.” “Then why not do it?” “I won’t give in, not yet. It’s like giving in to a woman; I won’t give in yet. I’ll come back later.” Jaz suddenly looked at Richard and smiled maliciously. “You won’t give in, Mr Somers, will you? You won’t give in to the women, and Australia’s like a woman to you. You wouldn’t give in to Kangaroo, and he’s dead now. You won’t give in to Labour, or Socialism. Well, now, what will you do? Will you give in to America, do you think?” “Heaven preserve me--if I’m to speak beforehand.” “Why, Mr Somers!” laughed Jaz, “seems to me you just go round the world looking for things you’re not going to give in to. You’re as bad as we folk.” “Maybe,” said Richard. “But I’ll give in to the Lord Almighty, which is more than you’ll do--” “Oh, well, now--we’d give in to Him if we saw Him,” said Jaz, smiling with an odd winsomeness he sometimes had. “All right. Well I prefer not to see, and yet to give in,” said Richard. Jaz glanced up at him suspiciously, from under his brows. “And another thing,” said Richard. “I won’t give up the flag of our real civilised consciousness. I’ll give up the ideals. But not the aware, self-responsible, deep consciousness that we’ve gained. I won’t go back on that, Jaz, though Kangaroo did say I was the enemy of civilisation.” “You don’t consider you are, then?” asked Jaz, pertinently.