“ I may have to be.”
“ You can’t have it all perfect beforehand, you know. You’ve got to sink a few times before you can swim.”
“ Sink in what?”
“ Why, it seems to me you want to have a thing all ready in your hand, know all about it, before you’ll try it. And there’s some things you can’t do that with. You’ve just got to flop into them, like when you chuck a dog into water.”
Somers received this rebuke rather sourly. This was the first wintry day they had really had. There was a cold fog in Sydney in the morning, and rain in the fog. In the hills it would be snow—away in the Blue Mountains. But the fog lifted, and the rain held off, and there was a wash of yellowish sunshine.
Harriet of course had to talk to a fellow-passenger in the train, because Lovat was his glummest. It
