"Will you go down and ask Mr. Brooke to come here?" she said. "You can tell him that I would like to speak to him."
The young man did not express any of the astonishment he certainly felt, but proceeded to do her bidding, though it afforded him no particular pleasure, for there was a certain imperiousness about Barbara Heathcote which was not without its effect. Brooke was putting away his fiddle when he came upon him.
"I haven't the pleasure of your acquaintance, Mr. Brooke, but it seems you know a friend of mine," he said. "If you are at liberty, Miss Heathcote would like to see you."
"Miss Heathcote?" said Brooke, for it had happened, not unnaturally, that he had never heard the girl's full name. Her companions, of whom he had not felt warranted in inquiring it, had called her Barbara in the bush, and he had addressed her without prefix.
"Yes," said the other, who was once more a trifle astonished. "Miss Barbara Heathcote."
He glanced at Brooke sharply, or he would not have seen the swift content in his face, for the latter put a sudden restraint upon himself.
"Of course! I will come with you at once," he said, and a minute or two later took the vacant place at Barbara's side.
"You do not appear very much surprised, and yet it was a long way from here I saw you last," she said.
Brooke fancied she meant that it was under somewhat different circumstances, and sat looking at her with a little smile. She was also, he decided, even better worth inspection than she had been in the bush, for the rich attire became her, and the garish electric radiance emphasized the gleam of the white shoulder the dainty laces clung about and of the ivory neck the moonlight had shone upon when first they met.
"No," he said. "The fact is, I have seen you already on several occasions in this city."
Barbara glanced at him covertly. "Then why did you not claim recognition?"
"No," said Barbara, reflectively, "I scarcely think it is--unless, of course, you had no desire to renew the acquaintance."
"Does one usually renew a chance acquaintance made with a packer in the bush?"
"It would depend a good deal on the packer," said Barbara, quietly. "Now this country is----"
There was a trace of dryness in Brooke's smile. "You were going to say a democratic one. That, of course, might to some extent explain the anomaly."