Alasdair sat back and observed him. ‘Is that what you came here to tell me, Everett?’ He sighed. ‘The people have accepted that the bill will be passed. Nothing can stop it. Why, they are more anxious to find out where we will choose to place our capital! Look at these …’ And he scooped up the pile of correspondence on his desk. ‘Submissions and proposals and entreaties from the councillors, the aldermen, the mayors and the wives of the mayors of every single insignificant town and settlement in New South Wales south of Sydney staking a claim to become our federal capital. See here: Bathurst, Goulburn, Cooma, Orange, Wagga Wagga, Blayney—I do not even know where Blayney is!—but every single one claims their town and only their town is perfectly placed to take on the role, that no other rival has a case to make. This is where feelings are running high, man, and it is nothing to do with nationhood and everything to do with self-aggrandisement and self-interest.’

Judd made no reply. He eased himself to his feet. Frowned for a moment at the neat rows of parliamentary periodicals and law books that lined Alasdair’s shelf. Seemed to have nothing further to say. Then: ‘You mention the capital, Dunlevy. Do you recall the words spoken in parliament at that same session? That federal parliament would, in the first few years of Federation, be held in Melbourne; and if Melbourne then refused to relinquish the federal parliament, if it decided to go back on its word, what was our recourse as New South Welshmen?’

He did not need to say it. Alasdair had been there. He had heard the reply: The only solution would be war.

There was a definite police presence in Macquarie Street. Alasdair had failed to notice it an hour earlier but here it was, now that one’s head was clearer. Not the usual fellow who tipped his hat and said a respectful, ‘Good morning, sir,’ as you arrived at Parliament House, but clusters of uniformed constables in twos and threes patrolling the length of the street, their countenances stern, without expression. No tipping of hats. No respectful greeting. He passed two of them now and they peered right through him and saw directly into his head so that he looked away, picked up his pace a little.

Was this, then, a sign of how it would be? Judd’s words come to pass so quickly. A new world, certainly, but not necessarily a better world? No, one could not believe such a proposition. It rendered all of Man’s endeavours worthless at best, devoid of meaning. Judd was lonely, his recent widowhood hanging heavily. Why, the man had been clasping Eleanor’s arm last night as though she were his wife. They had all witnessed it. It had seemed endearing then. Now it seemed a little—sad to admit—pathetic. And, yes, perhaps a little … indecent.