"Why, you shall just eat your breakfast here, my boy, and then go back to the 'Orient' and eat humble pie."
"Never!" I cried. "I'll see you damned first!"
"Silence, fool!" he almost shrieked. "You shall eat just as much dirt as she chooses to give you. Do you think I'm going to let you spoil this contract for a ha'porth of humility? That's not my way. And when you've talked her round——"
"Supposing she won't be talked round?"
"Suppose your grandmother! She's a woman, and if you go the right way to work, you ought to be able to do what you like with her. Then you'll let her understand that you have money to invest, and after that you'll find all go smooth as buttermilk."
"I don't like making myself cheap."
"Child, you've got to; you've fairly got to grovel, or quarrel with me. Now just pack your traps, and clear out of this; I want to wash up."
In obedience to his command I returned to the township, and once more entered the "Orient." Juanita was not in. She had gone for a walk along the beach. Inquiring the direction, I followed it, and soon discovered her seated on the side of Fortification Hill, gazing across the blue strip of sea to where the mainland of Australia pushes its head up above the horizon. Numbers of white-sailed pearling craft dotted the bay; a missionary schooner was going about on her second board towards her moorings; and so still was the air, that the sound of hammering came quite distinctly from a lugger at anchor under the shadow of the Prince of Wales' Island, nearly a mile away. As I approached her, Juanita looked up and saw me.
The scene which the Albino had arranged for me was not destined to be put into practice, for she took the matter into her own hands, and when I had seated myself beside her, fell to crying, and bitterly reproaching herself for what she termed her "wickedness" on the preceding night. I endeavoured to soothe her, but it was only when she had convinced herself of my forgiveness that she deigned to be comforted.
"Oh, my Jack," she said, brushing away her tears, "you don't know how angry I've been with myself for treating you so! Let me hear again that you forgive me."