Her face was against his shoulder and he breathed in the sweet liq­uor of her hair and his head swam in that vapour of warm woman flesh, but he could feel her woodenness in his arms. They were standing on her balcony which looked down into the creek and across the hills to the sea which surged in the night like a muffled heart. At last she turned from him to look out across the creek and he too turned stiffly and clutched the balcony rail, looking at the lights of Sydney winking through the trees on the edge of the harbour; looking through eyes misted with a pas­sion that threatened to split his heart and strangle him with the cords of his own neck.