"Seventy-nine per cent.," replied Dalrymple. "I'm afraid that's Greek to you, Miss Sellwood—and perhaps better so."
"You see, I'm as keen as ever on the old blocks!" cried Jack. It was a superfluous boast.
"So I do see; and I must say, Jack, you surprise me. Do you notice how he 'sirs' me, Miss Sellwood? I was on my way to pay homage to the Duke of St. Osmund's, not to receive it from Happy Jack of Carara!"
"Do you often come over to England, Mr. Dalrymple?" asked Olivia quickly. For the girl had seen the spasm in Jack's face, and she knew how the anæsthetic of this happy encounter had exhaled with the squatter's last speech.
"No, indeed!" was the reply. "I haven't been home for more years than I care to count; and the chances are that I shouldn't be here now but for our friend the Duke. He unsettled me. You see, Miss Sellwood, how jealous are the hearts of men! I had no inheritance to come home to; but I had my native land, and here I am."
"And you have friends in Devenholme?"
"I have one friend; I wish that I dared say two," replied the squatter, looking from Jack to Olivia in his most engaging manner. "No, to tell you frankly, I was on a little inquisitive pilgrimage to Maske Towers. I did not wait for an invitation, for I knew that I should bring my own welcome with me."
"Of course, of course; come out to-morrow!" exclaimed Jack nervously. "I'll send in for you, and you must stay as long as ever you can. If only I'd driven in, as I meant to, we'd have taken you back with us. Yet on the whole to-morrow will be best; you must give us time to do you well, you know, Mr. Dalrymple. It'll be a proud day for me! I little expected to live to entertain my own boss!"
Indeed, his pride was genuine enough, and truly characteristic of the man; but at the back of it there was a great uneasiness which did not escape the clear, light eye of Dalrymple. Not that the squatter betrayed his prescience by word or sign; on the contrary, he drank Jack's health in the champagne provided by him, and included Olivia's name in a very graceful speech. But Jack drank nothing at all; and having reduced his roll to a heap of crumbs, he was now employed in converting the crumbs into a pile of pellets.
Olivia pitied his condition; that tremulous brown hand, with the great bush freckles still showing at the gnarled finger-roots, touched her inexpressibly as it lay fidgeting on the white table-cloth. She strained every nerve to keep the squatter engaged and unobservant; and she found herself fluctuating, in a rather irritating manner, between her first instinctive antipathy and her later liking for the man. He was extremely nice to her; he had an obvious kindness for poor Jack; and she apprehended a personal magnetism, a unique individuality, quite powerful enough to account for Jack's devotion to him. She felt the influence herself. Yet there was something—she could not say what.