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

42 THE FOOT OF TIME
the extent of the settlement. The case was uncontested.
Before ever it came up for hearing, Clare's
husband settled a cool eighty thousand pounds upon
her. The munificence of the sum staggered the recipient.
It brought home to her more clearly than
she already knew it the fact that Sir Bruce
Arbuthnot's love for her was unchanged, as it was
unchangeable.
And that was a factor which affected Clare's after
life more than the source of her income. It was a
factor which has to be reckoned with and remembered
in the chronicling of her life. Her husband
loved her. Through thick and through thin—and
it was to be thin. Nothing could alter that. Even
after renouncing him legally and literally, still the
man refused to hate her, refused to alter to her,
refused to stop loving her.
Clare's one desire was to get away, to hide her
unhappy head, to seek seclusion where no one knew
her, knew of her, or cared. And so, without a
moment's delay, she left her affairs with lawyers,
took passage for Sydney, and started life all over
again. Commenced again under new conditions,
new surroundings, and new friends.
Anticipating her coming divorce, Clare went
back to her old maiden name of Swinton, and having
lived during her comparatively short spell in
India in the "Hills," no one on the R.M.T.S.S.
Ormon recognised in young Mrs. Swinton the Lady
Arbuthnot seeking freedom from marriage.
During the voyage south, Clare's mind was be-
THE FOOT OF TIME 43
numbed with misery. The time when the stark
reality of her loss would come home to her and reaction
set in was not just yet. She went ashore at
Colombo to effect a few purchases, and as though
in a dream entered into the inevitable bargaining
with the Cingalee hawkers, not entirely without
some small measure of enjoyment.
Towards Sydney Heads the leviathan ran into
the Australian fleet at their manoeuvres. It was
commanded by a diminutive officer bearing on his
breast about as many medals as were ever conferred
upon any one man. Medals to mark service, decorations
to reward bravery, insignias to record
scholastic attainment, exploration, self-sacrifice. As
perfect and as efficient a gentleman in the true
meaning of the word as ever came out of the old
country. A great heart and a big brain tucked into
a small body. His chief duty, perhaps, lay in him
being on the spot. Given just that, and the machine
which is called the Navy would work like a welltimed
clock. A willing horse serving under a real
man, whether commanding a small "Brooke" or an
entire fleet.
Sydney Heads opened up in the early morning
haze. There away on the Orman's starboard bow
lay Manly with its Catholic college, its priceless
beaches, its famous Norfolk pines. Opposite, ambitious
Balmoral lay tucked snugly away inside its
own proud heads. Heads inside heads! Little
wonder it felt proud. The leviathan turned south
towards Rose Bay, and passing the suburb of
Vaucluse on its port bow, Clifton Gardens opened