Alasdair slowed as a black cab rattled passed him, turning his face away so that its occupant would not see him.

Judd had arrived, unannounced, at his office not to voice his concerns about the referendum and the recent spate of protest. He had come to discuss Eleanor.

Alasdair stopped in the street. True, nothing whatsoever had been said by Judd during their curious meeting to suggest this, and yet the idea, once formed, would not be dislodged.

He set off again, quickened his pace. He thought about his meeting with the Premier. Made a brisk review of the year thus far in his ministry, the triumphs, the—

No, one did not think in terms of defeats. The challenges, then. The opportunities. There were many. For it was a curious office, the Secretary for Public Monies, falling as it did, uneasily, between Colonial Treasurer and Secretary for Public Works and covering much of the same ground as those two portfolios while having none of their power. And as practically everything that happened in the colony had something to do with public money, Alasdair had found himself on every committee, responding to questions, making speeches and drafting reports on every subject from infectious diseases to drought relief, from snagging in the Darling River to the registration of goat ownership. In the last session of parliament alone he had been appointed to a sessional committee dealing with foreign seamen and he had reported back from another sessional committee on the phylloxera vine pest that destroyed the European wine industry and now threatened the colony. He had fielded questions concerning next year’s Paris Exhibition—would the colony be represented? (Apparently not, for no one admitted to having organised anything, certainly Alasdair’s department had not, after which the usual concerns had been voiced lest it was found that Victoria had stolen a march on its neighbours and were themselves to be represented at the forthcoming exhibition.) The question of the City Railway (or lack thereof) had come up, as it always did, and there was the usual and very vocal consensus that the railway was both imperative and necessary—to which Alasdair had added his own voice—but that, due to various reasons which were equally vital and compelling, it could not happen yet. Or any time in the next ten years. Perhaps twenty years. He had made a speech in response to the long-awaited report of the Board of Health on the provision of infectious diseases, a report that had stalled for some years as it attempted to identify which diseases should be considered infectious within the meaning of the Act and which should not. And he had responded to an ardent speech made by a fellow member concerning the carriage of fruit on trains—a practice that flagrantly contravened Sunday trading laws.