know--those are what I admire in a woman. But not too much of the goddess
or of the angel either. I shouldn't want always to have to load up with
a pedestal when we shifted camp, and the only shrine I'd keep going for
her would be in my heart. It's a Mate I'm wanting, as well as an
Ideal. . . . Now you're laughing again.'

'No, I'm not. I agree with you entirely--and so would SHE.'

'There! You needn't tell me. I shouldn't wonder if I'd got the second
sight where SHE'S concerned.'

Again Mrs Gildea smiled enigmatically.

'I shouldn't wonder, Colin. But you haven't finished your personal
description. What about the colour of her eyes?'

'Now I don't believe I could say exactly the colour of her eyes any
more than of her hair. They're the kind, to me, that have no colour.
Soft and melting and sort of mysterious--Deep and clear and with a
light far down in them like starlight reflected in a still
lagoon. . . . I say, Joan, you remember the old Eight Mile Water-hole on
Dingo Flat--middle of the patch of flooded gum and she-oak--that the
Blacks used to say had no bottom to it? HER eyes seemed to me a bit like
that water-hole--No bottom to her possibilities.'

'That's true enough,' assented Mrs Gildea. 'There's no bottom to HER
possibilities.'

'I could tell it from her letter. She seemed to write flippantly about
things--but that was just because she hates insincerity and flummery,