The Foot of Time: A Novel of Australia and the South Seas: (1933)

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98 THE FOOT OF TIME
her. Then she threw off her mood, blamed herself
for a fool, and completely recovered went over to
Manly to call upon Florence Tooth, of all people.
Why she decided to call on that worthy, whom
she had met but once at Orange, she could not
herself have told you. Perhaps it was on account
of little nothings which had leaked through to her
from Edith via Bruce. Perhaps something in the
personality of Florence had got beneath her armour.
Be that as it may, nothing would do but
that Clare must take ferry back to Sydney to catch
the Curl Curl leaving Circular Quay at two o'clock
p.m.
Little did Clare know as the ferry churned up
the waters of the harbour Manlywards that Miss
Florence was in possession of secrets which would
have turned Clare's hair green. Confidence poured
into her secretive, understanding ears which made
mention of Sir Bruce Arbuthnot, umteenth
baronet and multitudinous villain.
For, with all her eccentricity, Florence was one
of those excitable women who completely lose
all such peculiarities when concerned with the
troubles of other people. No cobweb covered safe
buried family secrets so safely as could Florence,
and Edith knew it. Knew it as surely as she drew
breath.
Under the role of Father Confessor, Miss Tooth
was apt to find herself. Under it there was no need
to give vent to her insufficient energy outlet and
freedom of thought by training Gatling guns on an
inoffensive picnic crowd. Sitting, metaphorically
THE FOOT OF TIME 99
speaking, in her confessional box, Florence Tooth
became a real woman, a whole woman, and a
woman of the world, whose broad-minded judgment
was of some moment. Excitability completely
left her.
Edith had confessed to her unasked, and now
Clare was about to do so. Each woman had felt
in danger of bursting if she did not open up to some
sympathetic brain. And no finer nerve tonic in this
world could be given to Florence than to minister
and give carefully thought-out counsel to her
fellow mortals.
There are many Florence Tooths in this world;
they are generally unmarried, and their state of
single bliss is a definite loss to some poor fools of
men who should have seized them by the scalp and
married them, failing their securing them by
simpler means. And if such spinsters be "old
maids," then, thank God for old maids! The term
takes on a softer tone by its association with some
of the dearest women born.