Harriet loved Coo-ee, and was determined to be happy there. She had at last gradually realised that Lovat was no longer lover to her or anybody, or even anything: and amidst the chagrin was a real relief. Because he was her husband, that was undeniable. And if, as her husband, he had to go on to other things, outside of marriage: well, that was his affair. It only angered her when he thought these other things--revolutions or governments or whatnot--higher than their essential marriage. But then he would come to himself and acknowledge that his marriage _was_ the centre of his life, the core, the root, however he liked to put it: and this other business was the inevitable excursion into his future, into the unknown, onwards, which man by his nature was condemned to make, even if he lost his life a dozen times in it. Well, so be it. Let him make the excursion: even without her. But she was not, if she could help it, going to have him setting off on a trip that led nowhere. No, if he was to excurse ahead, it must be ahead, and her instinct must be convinced as the needle of a mariner’s compass is convinced. And regarding this Australian business of Callcott’s, she had her doubts. However, she had for the moment a home, where she felt for the moment as rooted, as central as the tree of life itself. She wasn’t a bit of flotsam, and she wasn’t a dog chained to a dog-kennel. Coo-ee might be absurd--and she knew it was only a camp. But then where she camped with Lovat Somers was now the world’s centre to her, and that was enough.