"If you're pleased, I am," said Austin, who did not care for protestations of gratitude, a trifle hastily. "Any way, you have got her, and though it's not my business, the question is what you're going to do. Eight thousand pounds isn't very much, after all, and English girls are apt to want a good deal, you know."
Jefferson laughed. "Forty thousand dollars is quite a nice little sum to start with; but I've got to double it before I'm married."
"There are people who would spend most of their life doing it," said Austin, reflectively. "How long do you propose to allow yourself?"
"Six months," and there was a snap in Jefferson's voice and eyes. "If I haven't got eighty thousand dollars in that time I'm going to have no use for them."
"When you come to think of it, that isn't very long to make forty thousand dollars in," said Austin.
He said nothing further, for he had met other Americans in his time, and knew the cheerful optimism that not infrequently characterises them.
Jefferson looked at him steadily with the little glow still in his eyes. "You stopped the Estremedura, and, in one respect, you're not quite the same as most Englishmen. They're hide-bound. It takes a month to find out what they're thinking, and then, quite often, it isn't worth while. Any way, I'm going to talk. I feel I've got to. Wouldn't you consider Miss Gascoyne was worth taking a big risk for?"
"Yes," said Austin, remembering what he had seen in the girl's face. "I should almost think she was."
"You would almost think!" and Jefferson gazed at him a moment in astonishment. "Well, I guess you were made that way, and you can't help it. Now, I'm open to tell anybody who cares to listen that that girl was a revelation to me. She's good all through, there's not a thought in her that isn't clean and wholesome. After all, that's what a man wants to fall back upon. Then she's dainty, clever, and refined, with sweetness and graciousness just oozing out of her. It's all round her like an atmosphere."
Austin was slightly amused, though he would not for his life have shown it. It occurred to him that an excess of the qualities his companion admired in Miss Gascoyne might prove monotonous, especially if they were, as in her case, a little too obtrusive. He also fancied that this was the first time anybody had called her clever. Still, Jefferson's supreme belief in the woman he loved appealed to him in spite of its somewhat too vehement expression, and he reflected that there was probably some truth in Jacinta's observation that the woman whose lover credited her with all the graces might, at least, acquire some of them. It seemed that a simple and somewhat narrow-minded English girl, without imagination, such as Miss Gascoyne was in reality, might still hear what Jacinta called the celestial music, and, listening, become transformed. After all, it was not mere passion which vibrated in Jefferson's voice and had shone in Muriel Gascoyne's eyes, and Austin vaguely realised that the faith that can believe in the apparently impossible and the charity that sees no shortcomings are not altogether of this earth. Then he brushed these thoughts aside and turned to his companion with a little smile.