"Business! business! Her business is here, child. I expect Mrs. Belswin to give all her time to you."
"She has done so until now."
"And now is the most important time, as I wish to see if she is a good companion for you."
"I'm sure you will like her very much, papa."
"Impossible. I like no one very much."
"Not even me?"
She threw her arms round Sir Rupert's neck, and his face relaxed somewhat under her smile.
"There, there, child!" he said, pushing her gently away, "if I have a weak spot in my heart it is for you. Now, good-bye at present I'm going to see how things are looking."
So he went away in the bright, breezy morning, and Kaituna was left alone in deep thought, wondering how she could tell him of the offer of marriage made to her by Archie Maxwell. She was a brave enough girl in most things, but felt decidedly reluctant to speak to her father about a subject she knew would be disagreeable to him. Archie was young, handsome, hopeful, and loved her dearly; but these four excellent qualities would seem nothing in Sir Rupert's eyes as opposed to poverty. The girl was in despair, knowing her father's iron nature as she did, and longed for the return of Mrs. Belswin, in order to have at least one friend to stand by her. It was true that Archie had declared himself ready to speak to Sir Rupert at once; but Kaituna, dreading the refusal of her father to countenance the engagement, persuaded him to wait until her chaperon came back. Meanwhile, she went off to her own room to read her lover's last letter; for as Archie, not being duly accredited, could not come to the house, they were obliged to correspond in a clandestine manner, which was not without its charm to the romantic nature of Miss Pethram.
While, therefore, Kaituna was attending to her business, Sir Rupert was attending to his. Accompanied by Belk, he rode over the estate, looking into things, and exercised the young man's dull brains pretty considerably by his shrewd questions concerning this and that and the other thing. Sir Rupert Pethram had not been a penniless younger son, nor graduated in New Zealand for nothing, for he knew as much about land, and crops, and cattle, and top dressing as any man. Being thus accomplished, he took occasion to read his bailiff a severe lecture, which Belk received in sulky silence, on the slip-slop fashion in which things were conducted.