that night the piano-tuner came out in quite a new character, and with immediate success. he began repeating poetry in the moonlit veranda, and naomi let him go on for an hour and a half; indeed, she made him; for she was in secret tribulation over one or two things that had happened during the day, and only too thankful, therefore, to be taken out of herself and made to think on other matters. engelhardt did all this for her, and in so doing furthered his own advantage, too, almost as much as his own pleasure. at all events, naomi took to her room a livelier interest in the piano-tuner than she had felt hitherto, while her own troubles were left, with her boots, outside the door.

it was true she had been interested in him from the beginning. he had so very soon revealed to her what she had never come in contact with before—a highly sensitized specimen of the artistic temperament. she did not know it by this name, or by any name at all; but she was not the less alive to his little group of interesting peculiarities, because of her inability to label the lot with one phrase. they interested her the more for that very reason; just as her instinct as to the possibilities that were in him was all the stronger for her incapacity to reason out her conviction in a satisfactory manner. her intellectual experience was limited to a degree; but she had seen success in his face; and she now heard it in his voice when he quoted verses to her, so beautifully that she was delighted to listen whether she followed him or not. her faith in him was sweetly unreasonable, but it was immensely strong. she was ready and even eager to back him heavily; and there are those who would rather have one brave girl do that on instinct, than win the votes of a hundred clear heads, basing their support upon a logical calculation.

for reasons of her own, however, naomi decided overnight to take her visitor a little less seriously to his face. she had been too confidential with him concerning station affairs past and present; that she must drop, and at the same time discourage him from opening his heart to her, as he was beginning to do, on the slightest provocation. these resolutions would impose a taboo on nearly all the subjects they had found in common. she quite saw that, and she thought it just as well. too much sympathy with this young man might be bad for him. naomi realized this somewhat suddenly in the night, and it kept her awake rather longer than she liked. but she rose next morning fully resolved to eschew conversation of too sympathetic a character, and to encourage her young friend in quotations from the poets instead. obviously this was quite as great a pleasure to him, while it was a much safer one—or so naomi thought in her innocence. but then it was a very genuine pleasure to her, too, because the poetry was entirely new to her, and her many-sided young man knew so much and repeated it so charmingly.

it was incredible, indeed, what a number of the poets of all ages he had at his finger-ends, and how justly he rendered their choicest numbers. their very names were mostly new to naomi. there was consequently an aboriginal barbarity about many of her comments and criticisms, and more than once the piano-tuner found it impossible to sit still and hear her out. this was notably the case at their second poetical séance, when naomi had got over her private[pg 105] depression on the one hand, and was full of her new intentions toward the piano-tuner on the other. he would jump out of his chair, and fume up and down the veranda, running his five available fingers through his hair until the black shock stood on end. it was at these moments that naomi liked him best.

he had been giving her "tears, idle tears" (because she had "heard of tennyson," she said) on the wednesday morning in the veranda facing the station-yard. he had recited the great verses with a force and feeling all his own. over one of them in particular his voice had quivered with emotion. it was the dear emotion of an æsthetic soul touched to the quick by the sheer beauty of the idea and its words. and naomi said:

"that's jolly; but you don't call it poetry, do you?"

his eyes dried in an instant. then they opened as wide as they would go. he was speechless.

"it doesn't rhyme, you know," naomi explained, cheerfully.

"no," said engelhardt, gazing at her severely. "it isn't meant to; it's blank verse."

"it's blank bad verse, if you ask me," said naomi pryse, with a nod that was meant to finish him; but it only lifted him out of his chair.

"well, upon my word," said the piano-tuner, striding noisily up and down, as naomi laughed. "upon my word!"

"please make me understand," pleaded the girl, with a humility that meant mischief, if he had only been listening; but he was still wrestling with his exasperation. "i can't help being ignorant, you know," she added, as though hurt.

"you can help it—that's just it!" he answered, bitterly. "i've been telling you one of the most beautiful things that tennyson himself ever wrote, and you say it isn't verse. verse, forsooth! it's poetry—it's gorgeous poetry!"

"it may be gorgeous, but i don't call it poetry unless it rhymes," said naomi, stoutly. "gordon always does."

gordon, the australian poet, she was forever throwing at his head, as the equal of any of his english bards. they had already had a heated argument about gordon. therefore engelhardt said merely:

"you're joking, of course?"

"i am doing nothing of the sort."

"then pray what do you call shakespeare"—pausing in front of her with his hand in his pocket—"poetry or prose?"

"prose, of course."

"because it doesn't rhyme?"

"exactly."

"and why do you suppose it's chopped up into lines?"

"oh, i don't know—to moisten it perhaps."

"i beg your pardon?"

"to make it less dry."

"ah! then it doesn't occur to you that there might be some law which decreed the end of a line after a certain number of beats, or notes—exactly like the end of a bar of music, in fact?"

"certainly not," said naomi. there was a touch of indignation in this denial. he shrugged his shoulders and then turned them upon the girl, and stood glowering out upon the yard. behind his back naomi went into fits of silent laughter, which luckily she had overcome before he wheeled round suddenly with a face full of eager determination. his heart now appeared set upon convincing her that verse might be blank. and for half an hour he stood beating his left hand in the air, and declaiming, in feet, certain orations of hamlet, until mrs. potter, the cook-laundress, came out of the kitchen to protect her young mistress if necessary. it was not necessary. the broken-armed gentleman was standing over her, shaking his fist and talking at the top of his voice; but miss pryse was all smiles and apparent contentment; and, indeed, she behaved much better for awhile, and did her best to understand. but presently she began to complain of the "quotations" (for he was operating on the famous soliloquy), and to profane the whole subject. and the question of blank verse was discussed between them no more.

she could be so good, too, when she liked, so appreciative, so sympathetic, so understanding. but she never liked very long. he had a tendency to run to love-poems, and after listening to five or six with every sign of approval and delight, naomi would suddenly become flippant at the sixth or seventh. on one occasion, when she had turned him on by her own act aforethought, and been given a taste of several past-masters of the lyric, from waller to locker, and including a poem of browning's which she allowed herself to be made to understand, she inquired of engelhardt whether he had ever read anything by "a man called swinton."

"swinburne," suggested engelhardt.

"are you sure?" said naomi, jealously. "i believe it's swinton. i'm prepared to bet you that it is!"

"where have you come across his name?" the piano-tuner said, smiling as he shook his head.

"in the preface to gordon's poems."

engelhardt groaned.

"it mentions swinton—what are you laughing at? all right! i'll get the book and settle it!"

she came back laughing herself.

"well?" said engelhardt.

"you know too much! not that i should accept anything that preface says as conclusive. it has the cheek to say that gordon was under his influence. you give me something of his, and we'll soon see."

"something of swinburne's?"

"oh, you needn't put on side because you happen to be right according to a preface. i'll write and ask the australasian! yes, of course i mean something of his."

engelhardt reflected. "there's a poem called 'a leave-taking,'" said he, tentatively, at length.

"then trot it out," said naomi; and she set herself to listen with so unsympathetic an expression on her pretty face, that he was obliged to look the other way before he could begin. the contrary was usually the case. however, he managed to get under way:

"let us go hence, my songs; she will not hear.

let us go hence together without fear;

keep silence now, for singing-time is over,

and over all old things and all things dear.

she loves not you nor me as all we love her.

yea, though we sang as angels in her ear,

she would not hear.

"let us rise up and part; she will not know.

let us go seaward as the great winds go,

full of blown sand and foam; what help is there?

there is no help, for all these things are so,

and all the world is bitter as a tear.

and how these things are, though ye strove to show

she would not know.

"let us go home and hence; she will not weep——"

"stop a moment," said naomi, "i'm in a difficulty. i can't go on listening until i know something."

"until you know what?" said engelhardt, who did not like being interrupted.

"who it's all about—who she is!" cried naomi, inquisitively.

"who—she—is," repeated the piano-tuner, talking aloud to himself.

"yes, exactly; who is she?"

"as if it mattered!" engelhardt went on in the same aside. "however, who do you say she is?"

"i? she may be his grandmother for all i know. i'm asking you."

"i know you are. i was prepared for you to ask me anything else."

"were you? then why is she such an obstinate old party, anyway? she won't hear and she won't know. what will she do? now it seems that you can't even make her cry! 'she will not weep' was where you'd got to. as you seem unable to answer my questions, you'd better go on till she does."

"i'm so likely to go on," said engelhardt, getting up.

naomi relented a little.

"forgive me, mr. engelhardt; i've been behaving horribly. i'm sorry i spoke at all, only i did so want to know who she was."

"i don't know myself."

"i was sure you didn't!"

"what's more, i don't care. what has it got to do with the merits of the poem?"

"i won't presume to say. i only know that it makes all the difference to my interest in the poem."

"but why?"

"because i want to know what she was like."

"but surely to goodness," cried engelhardt, "you can imagine her, can't you? you're meant to fill her in to your own fancy. you pays your money and you takes your choice."

"i get precious little for my money," remarked naomi, pertinently, "if i have to do the filling in for myself!"

engelhardt had been striding to and fro. now he stopped pityingly in front of the chair in which this sweet philistine was sitting unashamed.

"do you mean to say that you like to have every little thing told you in black and white?"

"of course i do. the more the better."

"and absolutely nothing left to your own imagination?"

"certainly not. the idea!"

he turned away from her with a shrug of his shoulders, and quickened his stride up[pg 113] and down the veranda. he was visibly annoyed. she watched him with eyes full of glee.

"i do love to make you lose your wool!" she informed him in a minute or two, with a sudden attack of candor. "i like you best when you give me up and wash your hands of me!"

this cleared his brow instantaneously, and brought him back to her chair with a smile.

"why so, miss pryse?"

"must i tell you?"

"please."

"then it's because you forget yourself, and me, too, when i rile you; and you're delightful whenever you do that, mr. engelhardt."

naomi regretted her words next moment; but it was too late to unsay them. he went on smiling, it is true, but his smile was no longer naïve and unconsidered; no more were his recitations during the next few hours. his audience did her worst to provoke him out of himself, but she could not manage it. then she tried the other extreme, and became more enthusiastic than himself over this and that, but he would not be with her; he had retired into the lair of his own self-consciousness, and there was no tempting him out any more. when he did come out of himself, it was neither by his own will nor her management, and the moment was a startling one for them both.

it was late in the afternoon of that same wednesday. they were sitting, as usual, in the veranda which overlooked not the station-yard but the boundless plains, and they were sitting in silence and wide apart. they had not quarrelled; but engelhardt had made up his mind to decamp. he had reasoned the whole thing out in a spirit of mere common-sense; yet he was reasoning with himself still, as he sat in the quiet veranda; he thought it probable that he should go on with his reasoning—with the same piece of reasoning—until his dying hour. he looked worried. he was certainly worrying naomi, and annoying her considerably. she had given up trying to take him out of himself, but she knew that he liked to hear himself saying poetry, and she felt perfectly ready to listen if it would do him any good. of course she was not herself anxious to hear him. it was entirely for his sake that she put down the book she was reading, and broached the subject at last.

"have you quite exhausted the poetry that you know by heart, mr. engelhardt?"

"quite, i'm afraid, miss pryse; and i'm sure you must be thankful to hear it."

"now you're fishing," said naomi, with a smile (not one of her sweetest); "we've quarrelled about all your precious poets, it's true, but that's why i want you to trot out another. i'm dying for another quarrel, don't you see? out with somebody fresh, and let me have shies at him!"

"but i don't know them all off by heart—i'm not a walking golden treasury, you know."

"think!" commanded naomi. when she did this there was no disobeying her. he had found out that already.

"have you ever heard of rossetti—dante gabriel?"

"kill whose cat?" cried naomi.

he repeated the poet's name in full. she shook her head. she was smiling now, and kindly, for she had got her way.

"there is one little thing of his—but a beauty—that i once learnt," engelhardt said, doubtfully. "mind, i'm not sure that i can remember it, and i won't spoil it if i can't; no more must you spoil it, if i can."

"is there some sacred association, then?"

he laughed. "no, indeed! there's more of a sacrilegious association, for i once swore that the first song i composed should be a setting for these words."

"remember, you've got to dedicate it to me! what's the name of the thing?"

"'three shadows.'"

"let's have them, then."

"very well. but i love it! you must promise not to laugh."

"begin," she said, sternly, and he began:

"i looked and saw your eyes

in the shadow of your hair,

as the traveller sees the stream

in the shadow of the wood;

and i said, 'my faint heart sighs

ah me! to linger there,

to drink deep and to dream

in that sweet solitude.'"

"go on," said naomi, with approval. "i hope you don't see all that; but please go on."

he had got thus far with his face raised steadfastly to hers, for he had left his chair and seated himself on the edge of the veranda, at her feet, before beginning. he went on without wincing or lowering his eyes:

"i looked and saw your heart

in the shadow of your eyes,

as a seeker sees the gold

in the shadow of the stream;

and i said, 'ah me! what art

should win the immortal prize,

whose want must make life cold

and heaven a hollow dream?'"

"surely not as bad as all that?" said naomi, laughing. he had never recited anything so feelingly, so slowly, with such a look in his eyes. there was occasion to laugh, obviously.

"am i to go on," said engelhardt, in desperate earnest, "or am i not?"

"go on, of course! i am most anxious to know what else you saw."

but the temptation to lower the eyes was now hers; his look was so hard to face, his voice was grown so soft.

"i looked and saw your love

in the shadow of your heart,

as a diver sees the pearl

in the shadow of the sea;

and i murmured, not above

my breath, but all apart——"

here he stopped. her eyes were shining. he could not see this, because his own were dim.

"go on," she said, nodding violently, "do go on!"

"that's all i remember."

"nonsense! what did you murmur?"

"i forget."

"you do no such thing."

"i've said all i mean to say."

"but not all i mean you to. i will have the lot."

and, after all, his were the eyes to fall; but in a moment they had leapt up again to her face with a sudden reckless flash.

"there are only two more lines," he said; "you had much better not know them."

"i must," said she. "what are they?"

"ah! you can love, true girl,

and is your love for me?"

"no, i'm afraid not," said naomi, at last.

"i thought not."

"nor for anybody else—nor for anybody else!"

she was leaning over him, and one of her hands had fallen upon his neck—so kindly—so naturally—like a mother's upon her child.

"then you are not in love with anybody else!" he cried, joyously. "you are not engaged!"

"yes," she answered, sadly. "i am engaged."

then naomi learnt how it feels to quench the fire in joyous eyes, and to wrinkle a hopeful young face with the lines of anguish and despair. she could not bear it. she took the head of untidy hair between her two soft hands, and pressed it down upon the open book on her knees until the haunting eyes looked into hers no more. and as a mother soothes her child, so she stroked him, and patted him, and murmured over him, until he could speak to her calmly.

"who is he?" whispered engelhardt, drawing away from her at last, and gazing up into her face with a firm lip. "what is he? where is he? i want to know everything!"

"then look over your shoulder, and you will see him for yourself."

a horseman had indeed ridden round the corner of the house, noiselessly in the heavy sand. monty gilroy sat frowning at them both from his saddle.