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

272 THE FOOT OF TIME
"My dear Sir, never! You carry your age remarkably
well, Sir Bruce."
"Go on, man!" ordered the baronet. "We want
to get this over."
Snubbed, the pince-nez were replaced.
The lady's turn came. "Your name and age,
Madam?"
Clare told him.
"Spinster?" queried the official.
"Her first husband is dead," interrupted Sir
Bruce tersely; "dead and buried. Died a natural
death out in India."
The official gasped astonishment. The baronet,
now smiling, possessed dry humour.
"Widow? But you said, Miss—er—what name
was it now?" Shakily he referred to his entries and
notes.
The lady turned to her companion. "Whatever
am I, darling?" she enquired.
The Registrar put down his pen. He wiped agitated
glasses. The gratuity had been unnecessarily
generous, and now this! Was there some irregularity?
He hoped that carpet wouldn't have to be
forfeited. He could pass no irregularity, neither
for baronets, nor for earls, for that matter.
"It's this way, you see," Sir Bruce began. "The
lady's first husband is dead."
"Widow," the official began to write.
"Do please explain it to him, Solomon, dear,"
Clare said.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE MAJOR AND THE MINOR.
THEIR second honeymoon was over. To be exact,
it was just beginning, because some moons refuse
to wane. Clare and her second husband—the husband
who so resembled her first—had repaired to
their country home at Hazelbrook—her home and
his—which Sir Bruce preferred to Vaucluse. Passing
through Sydney on their way up from Palm
Beach, Clare announced that she had an important
appointment, and leaving Bruce in the room of the
Overseas League, she met Bruce the lesser. He
agreed to come up and see his father at the time
his mother named, and the stage was accordingly
set for the meeting.
Sir Bruce was standing with his back to the
empty open fireplace, watching Clare and Bruno
in her garden. Clare appeared to be apologising to
her flowers for her short absence from them, when
the sound of a powerful sporting two-seater was
heard approaching. Clare disappeared from sight,
and he could just hear her voice speaking to the
driver, who had pulled up opposite View Cottage.
He distinctly heard his wife say, "Will you?" and
then, "You darling!"
With quick, athletic tread a very tall and