"Then, giving me the post was Mrs. Austin's plan?" Betty remarked and Kit thought her voice was rather hard.
"I expect it was," he agreed. "Mrs. Austin does things like that. I imagine she persuaded Wolf to send me on board Mossamedes."
Betty studied him. She did not think he saw the light he had given her. Sometimes Kit was dull.
"Don't you like Mrs. Austin?" he asked.
"I like Mrs. Jefferson better," Betty replied. She stopped and noting that Kit was puzzled, resumed: "She is kind. So is Mr. Jefferson. When he comes into his office he throws away his cigar. He asks me—Won't I write a note for him and count up the bills. He doesn't think because I'm paid it doesn't matter how he talks. But why did you give Mrs. Austin your mother's letter?"
"Now I think about it, I don't altogether know. She's sympathetic and I was bothered because you were ill. I imagine she saw I was bothered."
"Were you bothered very much?"
"Of course," said Kit. "You were breaking down, and must stop at Liverpool in the rain and cold; I had the sea and sun. Sometimes I was savage because I couldn't help."
"Then you didn't think Mrs. Austin might persuade her husband to give me a post at Las Palmas?"
"I did not. I gave her the letter, that's all. Mrs. Austin likes helping people, and Austin and Jefferson wanted an English clerk. I expect this accounts for their engaging you."