I squeezed his hand. “You know I can’t. I have to keep my nose clean to get custody of Flo.”

Then we both realised that the waitress was standing patiently waiting to take our orders. Listening enthralled.

“I beg your pardon, my dear,” he said to her, and ordered two cappuccinos. The girl shuffled away looking as if the Pope had granted her a private audience. Duncan’s good manners have the most extraordinary effect on women. Just goes to show we’re not used to being treated like delicate flowers.

I told him all about Flo and Dr. John Prendergast, and he did listen as if it really mattered to him. It can’t, I know that, except that I know he feels a great deal for me, and I suppose, feeling a great deal, it can matter.

“You have an air,” he said at the end of my tale, “of having just completed a walk across hot coals.” He studied the palm of my hand as if it held the answer to a riddle. “I wonder why I looked at you and loved you? A millisecond on a ramp, and I was done for. Is it because you belong to the world of Kings Cross? A denizen of an awful old house seething with cockroaches, a walker rather than a driver, a drinker of cheap brandy, a devotee of the bizarre, the tawdry, the frankly undesirable.”

“Your tongue, ace,” I grinned, “is touched with honey.”

“No, it isn’t,” he said instantly, and bit my hand. “Let me come home with you and it’ll soon find the honey.”

The cappuccinos arrived. Duncan smiled at the waitress and thanked her—two audiences with the Pope!

“Why did you arrange this rendezvous?” I asked.

“Just to see you on your own,” he answered. “Mr. Toby Evans seems to have moved into my territory.”

“No, he’s got his own territory,” I said, licking the fluff off my spoon. My happiness flooded back. “Oh, Duncan, the joy of finding my angel!”

“How are you off for money?” he asked.

“Fine,” I said.

“If you need it, you know where to come.”

But he knows I can’t accept money from him. Still, it’s nice of him to offer. I miss him, I’m never so conscious of it as when I’m with him again, even for a cappuccino at the Quay.

When I got up to go, I leaned across the table and kissed him hungrily, lips and tongue, and he kissed me back, one hand brushing a breast. The waitress was looking at us as if we were Heathcliff and Catherine.

“I’ll never be able to stay away from you,” he said.

“Good!” I walked out and left him to pay the bill.

They were all waiting to hear about Flo when I walked in. As probationers don’t go on the wards for the first three months, our Pappy is home in the evenings too. She’d made a whole heap of Chinese food, which we carried up to Toby’s attic because it’s the biggest room in the house and the views are marvellous. Funny, that. Toby used to be quite frantic at the very thought of people invading him in case someone left the mark of a rubber heel on his white floor, or chipped the table, or anything. But these days he’s more amenable, maybe because we’ve imposed a few rules of our own, like all shoes off before we go up the ladder, and don’t offer to wash the dishes. Truth is, I suspect, that even Toby is missing Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz, though we hear her every night.

Of course they know as well as I do that I’m actually not a scrap closer to getting Flo than I was before I found out where she is, but it makes such a difference to know where she is, and to know that we can all visit her. I checked that with Prendergast, who of course will be present to hear what’s said and see what we all look like, etc. But he won’t get any further with a one of them than he did today with me. Crossites are used to keeping secrets from officialdom. No one was surprised that our angel had gone through a plate glass window and no one was surprised that she’d survived it, though Bob cried terribly when I described the lacerations. She has a tender heart. Klaus thought it would be nice to bring his violin to the hospital and play for her—I didn’t tell him that I thought there might be objections. Once they hear that bow drawn across the strings, they’ll change their minds. I suppose it was the War ruined any chance Klaus had to make music his career, but the world’s loss is our gain, and he’s such a sweet chap, in love with his budgies. They’re all so nice.

What we don’t talk about when we’re together is the future. The Public Trustee, a bit bolder now that almost two months have passed without a will turning up, sent a fellow to inspect The House when only Pappy was home. Oh, the waste! he clucked when he realised that two flats and a room were untenanted. And why were the rents so cheap? So we expect that in another couple of months, maybe sooner, strangers will move into the front ground floor flat, Harold’s room, and Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz’s quarters. How can you tell the Public Trustee about front ground floor flats at Kings Cross? There will be sailors everywhere again. Jim reported that she’d spoken to Joe the Q.C., whose considered opinion is that our rents can’t be increased without a lot of Fair Rent Board fuss, because the landlady herself had pegged them years ago. It’s more the thought of having people in The House who haven’t been hand-picked. I mean, the thing is that this is Kings Cross, so the flats aren’t really flats and the rooms are pretty awful. It’s under the lap! Now we’ve got the bloody Public Trustee peering up our skirts. Once they take full control, there’ll be a major earthquake, and they’re likely to spend a good part of Flo’s bank book inheritance turning The House into something that fits the full meaning of the Act, whichever Act they decide is applicable. They’ll probably ban scribbling on the walls.

When the rest departed, I lingered.

Toby hadn’t had a lot to say, just sat on the floor with his legs crossed and listened, his eyes going from face to face. They look redder than they ought to, a sure sign that something is on his mind or his temper’s ruffled. Some of it, I am convinced, is Flo. Oh, he was always kind to her, but she hasn’t the power over him that she has over the rest of us. Toby resists, which may be a part of that Australianness. Let a woman have power over him? Not on!

“Having second thoughts about keeping your room here?” I asked as he commenced to wash the dishes.

His back was to me. “No.”

“Then what is biting you?”

“Nothing.”

I went round the corner of the sink and leaned against the cupboard so I could see at least a profile. “Something is. Flo?”

He turned his head to look at me. “Flo’s none of my business.”

“And that’s the trouble. To the rest of us, she’s very much our business. Why isn’t she yours, an orphaned child?”

“Because she’s going to ruin your life,” he said to the sink.

“Flo could never do that, Toby,” I said gently.

“You don’t understand,” he said through his teeth.

“No, I don’t. So why don’t you tell me?” I asked.

“You’ll be tying yourself down to someone who isn’t even the full quid. There’s something wrong with Flo, and you’re just the sort who’s going to spend the next twenty years worrying about her, dragging her to doctors, spending money you don’t have.” He let the water out of the sink.

“What about the bank books?” I asked.

“That was then. This is now. There isn’t a will, Harriet, and governments being governments, the kid will never see a penny of what her mother had. She’s going to be a burden resting solidly on you, and you’re going to make yourself old before your time.”

I sat down in an easy chair, frowning. “So this is about me, not about Flo?”

“There’s only one person in this house I’d go to the wall for, Harriet, and that’s you. I can’t bear the thought of you turning into one of those drab, defeated women you see all over Sydney, with kids in tow and the old man at the pub,” he said, pacing.

“Ye gods!” I said feebly. “You mean its me you’re in love with? Is that why—”