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you sip it you can see what the tourist shop has to offer. Ready, Future Mrs. Mannering?”
    “You do go on ridiculously.” Gemma rose, a little annoyed. She had been miles away in a world of star shadows, and she didn’t like coming to earth.
    “But accurately?” He had taken it that she referred to his “Future Mrs. Mannering”. He added : “You are marrying the guy?”
    “We’re engaged,” she said stiffly.
    “That’s not an answer. Incidentally, I see no ring.”
    “Bruce has the ring.”
    “Handy,” he grinned.
    “Handy?” Gemma queried.
    “You could do what our Bush Betty did, or tried to do—win yourself a second ring.”
    “One is enough, thank you,” she said coldly.
    “If you have it.”
    “Oh. I have it.”
    He had come behind her to help her up. “I’ll take your word for that.”
    There were quite a few people in the vestibule; hidden in the corner of the dining room Gemma had not seen the number of patrons. Balancing their coffee, the guests were all absorbed now in what offered in the tourist display.
    Gemma joined them, Tim Torrance close behind her, and she expressed interest in nulla-nullas, waddies, didgeridoos, tribal paintings.
    But most of all the opals. You simply could not look away from the opals.
    “There are black opals and white opals,” Tim Torrance was saying over her shoulder, “and both are misnomers. Black are really fire, flame, sunrise and sunset mixed together, and white are maidens’ dreams. Are you a maiden, Harriet’s rescuer?”
    “I’m twenty-six, so I could scarcely be categorized as a maiden any longer,” Gemma said, annoyed. Really, this man!
    “Then it’s a black for you.” Before Gemma knew what he was doing, he was prompting her into the boutique.
    She tried to protest. She tried to turn away.
    “I’ll take it back afterwards,” he whispered in her ear, “but right now Betty is watching us. Accept it, for heaven’s sake, then reward me with a kiss.”
    “I can’t!”
    “It’s a beauty.” He nodded to the display.
    “I still can’t. Mr. Torrance . . . Territorian ... I’m engaged .”
    “I said I’d take it back afterwards.”
    “But—”
    “We both like this one,” said the man to the attendant, and a magnificent ring was being persuaded down Gemma’s finger. The third finger of her left hand.
    “I can’t,” she tried again.
    ‘Be quiet, our friend is hanging on every word. If you let me down I’m a doomed man.”
    “But—”
    “With all my love, darling.” The Territorian had raised his voice a decibel, he could not help being heard. He was coming close to Gemma again, kissing her again since she had not stepped forward, as ordered, to kiss him. Only there was something different about his kiss now. Or—or was it her ? Gemma thought.
    For, in spite of herself, she was leaning forward to be kissed again, leaning forward intentionally, and the things that she had said were past twenty-six were happening. It was impossible, but they still were happening. Rainbows. Tiptoe. Cloud nine. Being “swept”.
    “You never said,” he whispered, still breath-close to her, “what your name was, Future Mrs. Mannering.”
    “Glasson,” she told him.
    “Before that?”
    “Gemma.” He repeated : t after her. Then he said :
    “And how long does Bruce Mannering think he can keep this gem in a box ?”

CHAPTER THREE
    A MAID wakened Gemma the next moaning with a breakfast tray with a note propped against the coffee pot. When she had left, Gemma opened the envelope and saw that the message was from the Territorian.
    “Good morning, Future Mrs. Mannering. By the time you read this I’ll have been on the road for hours, but not in your direction, so don’t think you can catch me.”—Catch him, indeed!—“I’ve instructed the hotel yard man to install Harriet when you’re ready to leave. You should be all right now until you reach the Establishment”—The Establishment!— “since it’s clear going and a safe