"You have uncles and aunts?" said Mr Hall.
"One uncle and two aunts. I shall suit their views and my cousins' better by sending home some diamonds than by coming myself."
"How long will that take?" asked Mr Hall. The conversation was kept up solely between Mr Hall and John Gordon. Mr Whittlestaff took no share in it unless when he was asked a question, and the four girls kept up a whisper with Miss Forrester and Montagu Blake.
"I have a share in rather a good thing," said Gordon; "and if I could get out of it so as to realise my property, I think that six months might suffice."
"Oh, dear! Then we may have you back again before the year's out?" Mr Whittlestaff looked up at this, as though apprised that the danger was not yet over. But he reflected that before twelve months were gone he would certainly have made Mary Lawrie his wife.
"Kimberley is not a very alluring place," said John Gordon. "I don't know any spot on God's earth that I should be less likely to choose as my abiding resting-place."
"Except for the diamonds."
"Except for the diamonds, as you remark. And therefore when a man has got his fill of diamonds, he is likely to leave."
"His fill of diamonds!" said Augusta Hall.
"Shouldn't you like to try your fill of diamonds?" asked Blake.