Read Online Over the Blue Mountains by Mary Burchell - Free Book Online

satisfy her uncle’s concern on her behalf.
    This, however, proved unnecessary. At lunch Max Ormathon joined them and when, in the course of conversation, Uncle Edmund said something about his having to take Juliet to Tyrville the next day, Max looked up and said, “But I’m driving that way myself tomorrow. I’ll take her with pleasure.”
    Aunt Katherine, nonplussed for once, gazed at her plate, while Verity caught her breath on an angry gasp but dared not do more. Uncle Edmund, however, was delighted.
    “Why, that’s splendid!” It was the first time Juliet had seen him display so much enthusiasm. “I shall feel perfectly satisfied if you will undertake to see Juliet safely to her destination. You say it won’t be out of your way at all?”
    “Not in the least.”
    Max Ormathon smiled slightly at Juliet, but—uncomfortable and embarrassed by the presence of her aunt and Verity—she could not smile in return. She could only look away and say a little ungraciously, “It’s quite unnecessary for Mr. Ormathon to come. Really, I’d much rather go alone.”
    “I won’t hear of your going alone, my dear,” her uncle insisted. “This is a most happy solution of the difficulty.”
    “I thought you were coming on with us to Melbourne, Max,” Aunt Katherine said a little reproachfully.
    “Not for a week or ten days, Mrs. Burlett. I promised my sister I would spend a short while with her as soon as I got home. She and her husband have a place between Bathurst and Cowra. I can easily drop Juliet off at Tyrville.”
    “Excellent, excellent,” pronounced Uncle Edmund.
    And there really was nothing left for Juliet to do but thank Max Ormathon for the promised lift, and try to look as though she didn’t know Verity would willingly have killed her by inches.
    But, immediately after lunch, she made her escape from her relations and from the hotel. Not only did she feel she was entitled to a couple of hours on her own and the chance of catching a glimpse of Sydney, but she wanted to avoid any possibility of further clashes.
    Even now she had only a vague idea of the relationship between Verity and Max Ormathon. Evidently he was an accepted friend of the family, but Juliet could not really say that she had seen any indisputable basis for Verity’s assertion that Max was the man she was going to marry.
    Possibly, or course, she had meant that he was the man she intended to marry. And if so—and she had not yet gone much beyond the stage of wishful thinking—that would do much toward explaining her fury and resentment over any fancied display of interest on Juliet’s part.
    If she only knew how welcome she is to him, thought Juliet, with an amused, exasperated little laugh. She can have all the Max Ormathons in the world, so long as I have my Martin.
    And thinking once more of Martin and their approaching meeting she went out into the sunshine of Martin Place—an augury that she found both amusing and charming.
    After a few minutes Juliet realized that she must be in the business and banking quarter of the city and, following what she thought she remembered of the drive that morning, she was pleased to find that she successfully retraced the route as far as the Hyde Park, which her uncle had pointed out.
    This time it had a faint familiarity about it, and she welcomed it almost as an old friend. It was a cool, bright afternoon—not at all what one would regard as a winter afternoon at home—and Juliet sat down on one of the benches and looked her fill at the beautiful Anzac War Memorial and the Pool of Reflections beyond. Indeed, if was some time before she realized that she also had a distant but impressive view of the Harbor Bridge once more. And here, too, she seemed to recognize an old friend again.
    She spent most of the afternoon sightseeing, and each time she recognized some landmark she had seen before, it seemed to her that she strengthened some small link with her new homeland, and she thought, I am going