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“
I
think you were a first prize, Jim,” Gemma said sincerely.

“Thank you, Gemma, and I think that Bruce is getting the very top of the class.”

“After those mutual compliments,” smiled Gemma, “tell me how you kept a straight face dressed all in white.”

“I told you, we didn’t have all that. But I also just told you not to take it that seriously.”

“I have to. We all have to. You, too, have to wear
white.”

“I quite like white,” Jim said amicably. “It’s a perfect choice for these latitudes. Oh, come, Gemma, don't make such a fuss.”

“I was just wondering if everyone likes white.”

“When commanded, yes.”

“But ones who are used to commanding themselves?”

“Namely?”

“Oh, no one in particular,” evaded Gemma.

“Then we’ll have to see, won’t we?” smiled Jim. “Now I’m going out to see to my wife. Cheer up, girl, it’s going to be fun.”

“Yes,” said Gemma, “it’s going to be fun.”

But when he had gone she went to the window and thought: Whose fun? When do I start to laugh?

She laughed the next day, though, over the waterlilies. One thing Gemma had never been able to make was knicknacks. Her waterlilies might be plastic, but they certainly wilted as though they were the real thing.

“Do something else, Gemma,” Mrs. Mannering commanded impatiently at last.

All the guests to the party would be accommodated overnight at Mannering Park. There were the four houses available, and after that the barns, under Jim’s supervision, were being partitioned to provide the single accommodation.

“Single girls, too?” Vida asked. “I’ve invited several.”

“Only
_;
after the houses arc exhausted, I don’t like the idea of girls out there.”“They will,” Vida grinned, but wiped away the smile smartly.

“We will try the houses first,” Mrs. Mannering said stiffly. “Of course the girls will have to double up, they will have to room together.”

“Then Deborah can share with me,” Vida decided. “Deborah?”

“I went to school with her, remember?”

“Yes, I remember. Her grandparents were the Adelaide Stockleys.”

“Yep. Filthy rich.”

“I wish you wouldn’t speak so disgustingly, Vida."

“And now,” continued Vida, “Deborah is sole heiress. Her doting grandparents missed a generation and chose Deb. Deb is simply rolling.”

“Vida! But yes, I suppose you can have her with you.” Mrs. Mannering was looking rather thoughtful.

“What if she casts her eyes in the same direction as I’ll be casting?” Vida said slyly.

“You’re an impossible girl! Sometimes I think all my children are impossible. Now get on with those waterlilies. And Gemma, you can help me plan the menu. It has to be posted down tonight.”

Gemma went obediently into Mrs. Mannering’s exquisite writing room and sat down at a very beautiful desk. She was completely awed at the selection of viands that Mrs. Mannering wrote down and directed to be flown up.

“What did you expect, dear,” Mrs. Mannering asked, looking up and catching a bemused look on Gemma’s face, “a dormitory tea?” She laid her pen down for a moment. “You are a very naive girl,” she sighed, “absolutely no sophistication. Knowing you were from Sydney I had expected better.”

"‘Better?” queried Gemma.

“I really meant more poise, dear. More maturity. I really don’t believe you're as old as Vida.”

“Oh, I am, I’m—”

“I know.” Mrs. Mannering was characteristically impatient, she would never accept correction. “Now after the pate I think—’’

On and on it went, and every day was the same. At times Gemma thought: If an engagement is like this, how will I get through a wedding? She longed often to escape, to jump in her little car . . . she was not efficient enough yet to leap on the back of a horse . . . and to seek out Chris. She thought often of Chris Mitchell and the comfort he had given her. She thought of the Territorian, too, but never in terms of comfort.

Meanwhile the big day came closer and closer. There were dress rehearsals, with Bruce timing everything to the second. Timing the moment the candles would be lit, Timing the moment the band would strike up. Timing the moment the fireworks would begin. Timing the moment Bruce and Gemma would toast, each other, then all the rest of the guests, the diplomats, the heads of state, the what-have-yous, raise their glasses as well.

Sometimes Gemma thought she would explode. It was all so unreal, so pointless, so artificial, even though Bruce and Janet assured her that it would turn out, as everything their mother did always turned out, a triumph. Of all things at these times, Gemma longed for soft peaked ears lined with pink plush, an india-rubber nose, clumsy feet. She longed for Harriet. How big, she wondered, was Harriet now?

But there was no hope of escape. Every day brought more things to be done, more timing, more rehearsals, more fittings. Then on the day before the party the hairdressers were flown in.

That looked after that day, and, waking up the next morning, Gemma found that it was a beautiful morning. Somehow she had expected it
not
to be. You can’t have everything go right, she had thought.

“Mother can.” Gemma must have spoken aloud, for Janet, who had entered silently with an early cup of tea for Gemma, smiled crookedly. “It’s usually amiable weather this time of the year, and besides, Mamma has been in close touch with the appropriate bureau. You could say in a way that she’s even
ordered
a fine day.”

At noon the planes began putting down on the Mannering Park strip. Gemma knew that people came to picnic races like this, but she had never dreamed that they came, too, to private parties. Yet one after the other, Bruce and Jim signalling them in by mirrors, by strips laid down between upturned white plastic buckets, by a fire lit to show the wind direction, Cherokees, Cessnas and Beachcraft, other small size planes, began to arrive. If Gemma had not been so amazed, she could have been nervous. All these important people! But she was too incredulous for nervousness.

Dusk was at seven. Up here in the sub-tropics, night fell instantly, no purple warnings, no gathering of pansy clouds. One moment bright blue skies, the next navy blue. But with the darkness now came light, the light of a hundred lanterns placed cunningly round the garden and round the swimming pool. At the right moment the lanterns would be extinguished and the candles on the floating water lilies would light the scene instead. The punt with its load of white roses would drift gently over the sparkling water.

But just now it was party arrival time. The married guests, after being housed in the bungalows, their daughters after being doubled in any other available rooms, their sons after being shown the improvised cubicles in the barns, were strolling from their sleeping places for tonight to merge and mingle on the perfect Mannering lawns ... and yes,
yes,
Janet was right. Bruce was right. What had sounded preposterous actually looked wonderful. Men and women moving around all in white. A white night. A white world.

Mrs. Mannering stood on a small flowered dais in a gown that had to be French. Vida stood beside her. Gemma had been told to wait in the wings, as it were.

“Your turn comes afterwards, my dear.”

The white-jacketed orchestra was playing. White-jacketed waiters were moving quietly through the throngs.

It was all very wonderful, very exciting, and Gemma actually caught her breath over it.

Then she was letting her breath go, releasing it in horror and disbelief. How could he?
How could he?
How could the Territorian do this?

For Tim Torrance had last entered, and in that glittering white array he stood out like a beacon. Or the Devil? For though formally dressed, he was
darkly
dressed. He wore a black dinner suit.

Gemma was near enough to Mrs. Mannering to hear her angry: “The impertinence! Who does he think he is!”

Then she heard Vida whimpering: “But, Mother, you did agree . . . and Mother, remember—”

Tim Torrance was coming straight across to his hostess. His manners, anyway, left nothing to be desired. Also the manner in which he kissed Mrs. Mannering’s hand would have passed anywhere. Except, and Gemma tried to step further back in the shadows, as he did so he looked straight at her as she stood in the “wings”. And winked.

Then he straightened again.

“Mr. Torrance, I did request if possible—” Mrs. Mannering evidently found she could not stop herself at least from saying that.

“White gear? Sorry, but my only white stuff is a pair of overalls, and I hardly think— But” ... an impudent grin ... “I knew it was me you wanted, not the clobber, so here I am.” He had turned slightly and now his glance fell on Vida.

“Hi there, kid,” he dismissed.

For that was what it was, a dismissal, a dismissal of all Mrs. Mannering's plans. It was the final telling blow. Mrs. Mannering might forgive a black suit, a frivolous explanation as to why no white one had been forthcoming, especially when the explanation came from a man of such means, but his breezy “Hi, kid” to Vida made it quite clear, quite definite, to Vida’s mother that as far as Tim Torrance was concerned what he represented in the way of success and wealth would never be of any concern of Mannering Park.

Mrs. Mannering’s cool grey eyes were flaming uncoolly. Tim Torrance’s own eyes accepted her chill with sly amusement.

"Having turned up,” he drawled, "I'll now duly depart. Best of luck to the reason for all this.” He looked around him briefly. “Goodnight to you.”

As quickly and as suddenly as he had come, Tim Torrance was gone.

Mrs. Mannering was petrified for one second only. Then she turned sharply to Vida. “Pull yourself together, for heaven’s sake! Mingle. Find Deborah. Really, Vida, you are a fool of a girl!”

Gemma slunk away. At any moment she would be called upon by Mrs. Mannering, or Bruce, or someone, to do something, say something, and just now— It was at that moment she saw that there was worse still to conic. She saw' the girl, recognized the girl, then froze to the ground. She must be Vida’s school friend Deborah, the girl Vida had chosen to room with her, the girl Mrs. Mannering had been interested in when she remembered her rich grandparents.

But she was also—someone else. She was that tall, very elegant, very attractive young woman that night in the Alice Springs hotel lobby, the girl who had stood near Tim.

There was no mistaking Deborah—
Deborah
, not Bush Betty, not Clara, not Tessie. Deborah Stockley might be an heiress, but she still had an eye for opals .. .
or men?
In the end, to escape her, the Territorian had said to Gemma:

“Darling, you’ve been hours, but it’s been worth every second.” He had studied her proudly . . .
mock
proudly ... up and down.

Afterwards in the dining room he had grinned back when Gemma had objected, and retorted:

“Mistress, fiancée, wife. That was the idea. Any of the three would do so long as she got the message that you belonged.”

And now the girl was here. Deborah Stockley was here at Gemma’s engagement party to Bruce Mannering. Deborah had seen Gemma with the Territorian. She had watched him kiss her . . . put a ring on her finger.

At that moment Deborah turned, stared, loosened her arm from Vida’s, then came across.

“Why, it’s Mrs. Torrance,” she smiled. “I met you at The Alice.”

She extended a slender hand.

“YOU’RE mistaken. I’m not Mrs. Torrance,” Gemma said coolly, and wondered how she could be so composed.

“Then engaged to be. Or—” A guilty clap to her mouth and a small girl look. “I
am
awful,” Deborah Stockley apologized.

Vida had followed her friend across the lawn. “Gemma, this is Deborah Stockley. I spoke about Deb, remember? Deb, this is Bruce’s fiancée, Gemma Glasson. The reason for tonight’s festivities.” Vida tried to sound gay, but she still looked stunned.

“Of course. What a fool I am! I thought I’d seen Miss Glasson before. I thought I’d seen her with Mr. Torrance at the Alice Springs Hotel. Now that I take a second look I can see it’s only a resemblance. Will you please forgive me, dear?”

“Yes,” Gemma murmured.

Vida, still smarting, asked vindictively: “But you
did
see Tim Torrance?”

“I certainly did. And in a decidedly compromising situation. And to think. Miss Glasson, I mistook
you
for— Well, you understand.”

Vida was not listening, not noticing the exchange of looks between the two girls. “That would be Torrance,” she said, “he always had a reputation. There was Jenny Lawson ... probably many before Jenny. Like silk purses out of pigs’ ears, it seems you can’t make a gentleman out of a thirty-six-wheeler. Gemma, Mother is looking around for you. I think there’s going to be an announcement.”

Gemma, still managing to appear composed, nodded and threaded her way to the flowered dais. Bruce was already waiting there, so this must be the point of no return. Oh, for heaven’s sake, why had she thought that?

The rest of the evening was sheer torment for Gemma, but for Mrs. Mannering it was a triumph. As though to make up for the one sour note, everything went perfectly. The lanterns went out at the right time, not one of the waterlily candles misbehaved, the music burst through gladly, the food was perfect, the wine was potent, the fireworks exciting, and Bruce and Gemma linked arms in the European manner and looked very picturesque as they plighted their troth.

There were congratulations from right and left... most of them for Mrs. Mannering.

“Roberta, you should have been an entrepreneur.”

“Roberta, you’ve excelled yourself.”

No one mentioned a dark evening suit. Probably if they had, it would have only been to congratulate Mrs. Mannering again for affording them a moment of contrast. Drama, they would have called it, Gemma decided vaguely, vague because she wasn’t thinking much about it, either, she was thinking only of Deborah Stockley.