Jacinta sighed whimsically, perhaps to hide what she felt.
"Then I'm afraid we shall not see him, which is a pity, because I've been thinking over the nice things I meant to say to him, and now they're all wasted," she said. "You will tell him that we came to say good-bye to him, won't you, and that I'm just a little vexed he never called to tell us anything about his expedition."
Macallister grinned sardonically, and though Jacinta was usually a very self-possessed young woman, she appeared to find his gaze a trifle disconcerting.
"Well," he said, "I know all about it. He has sold everything he had, and he borrowed £40. One way or another he has another £60 of his own."
Jacinta looked up sharply. "He has no more than that?"
"It's not likely," and Macallister watched her with a faint twinkle in his eyes. "I do not know why he would not have the £200 Mr. Brown offered him. Maybe ye do."
There was a just perceptible trace of colour in Jacinta's cheek. "I hardly see how you could expect me to when I never heard of it until this moment," she said. "Would £100 be enough for Mr. Austin?"
"I'm thinking it would. No for everybody under the same circumstances, but enough for him. There are folks in these islands who have only seen the outside of Mr. Austin, which, ye may observe, is in one sense quite a natural thing."
He stopped a moment, and smiled upon her genially. "It's not his fault that he's no quite so well favoured as I am. What would ye expect of an Englishman? Still, there are men aboard here who have seen what's underneath—I mean the other side of him—at nights when he brought the dispatch off through the surf, and once—though that was not his business—when I was sick, an' they let water down in the starboard boiler."
"Still," said Jacinta, "he would naturally have to have so many things."