Free South of Capricorn by Anne Hampson Page A

he asked her, but his eyes were on Gail’s face.
    ‘Yes, Daddy, I’m happy!’
    ‘Do you know how long you’ve been here?’
    ‘One week and one day!’
    ‘That’s right. Good girl for keeping count.’
    ‘I’m not a good girl,’ chuckled Leta, seizing his hand and putting it to her cheek. ‘I’m a very naughty girl!’ She glanced slyly at him. ‘You don’t want me to be good, do you, Daddy?’
    Was he put out by this? wondered Gail, trying to read that impenetrable expression even though she knew the futility of her efforts. For what Leta said was true; her father had no desire for an immediate reformation in his errant daughter ... no, not until his plan had succeeded. And after that? A wry expression entered Gail’s eyes. Young Leta was in for a shock! Gail had never been so sure of anything as she was of Kane’s ability to bring his child to heel. A week in his house had more than proved to her the supreme mastery of the man, even though she had seen little of him, as he was out for practically the whole of each day, returning to the homestead merely for lunch and then at dusk, when he was finished work - at least, outside. After dinner he usually went off to a private room of his own — an office-cum-snug - one of the lubras had termed it one day when Gail had met her coming from the room, which she had just been cleaning.
    ‘You haven’t answered my question,’ Leta was saying. ‘You don’t want me to be good, do you?’
    ‘I’ve never said such a thing.’ His voice to Gail held an edge that warned, but it was not meant to be heard by Leta and as she continued to look at Kane, Gail could not suppress a smile. His eyebrows shot up inquiringly.
    ‘Something amusing you, Gail?’
    She nodded, but glanced at the verandah. Following the direction of her eyes Kane nodded too, but he made no comment and Leta began chattering, demanding to know how she could make the kookaburras laugh.
    ‘You can’t. They laugh when they feel like it, just as you do.’
    ‘If I tell them they must—’
    ‘You can’t order them the way you order people,’ chided Gail. She was awkward in Kane’s company, as always, and she would have escaped were it at all possible. She had no desire to be with him, and this was - she admitted quite freely - owing to the manner in which she was affected by him. She had hated him before meeting him and she intended to go on hating him, because of what he had done to Sandra. But the more she saw of him the more she was tom by doubts, not only that there might have been some excuse for his conduct, but that she herself might reach the point when she no longer even disliked him.
    ‘Do you generally order people about?’ he was inquiring of Leta and, when the child said yes, he then added, ‘I think I must get to know you a little better, young lady. Eight days you’ve been here and I still know practically nothing about you.’
    ‘You know her character - to a great extent,’ put in Gail shortly.
    ‘I know she’s not well-behaved, yes.’
    ‘Her mother was so gentle and unoffending,’ mused Gail without thinking.
    ‘So Leta doesn’t take after her? Is that what you’re telling me?’
    He had asked for it, decided Gail, and she answered, looking directly up into his face,
    ‘It is, yes.’
    ‘So she must take after me?’
    ‘That’s what I was implying,’ she returned with honesty, and to her surprise, his only reaction was to say, with a quality of amused satire in his voice,
    ‘I won’t argue with you, my dear.’
    My dear ... She wished he would not say it; it always awakened some strong but unfathomable emotion within her.
    ‘Do you mind if I go inside?’ she asked, constraint in her manner. ‘I would like to wash my hair before dinner.’
    ‘By all means,’ he assented. They had drawn nearer to the verandah and were now so close that his stepmother was able to hear what they said. And for her benefit he put his arm around Gail’s shoulder and touched