He imagined Betty's glance rested on him for a moment and was gone, but Jefferson looked amused.
"Don't you get things mixed? When we towed out on board the old Orinoco in the sooty fog, Liverpool wasn't much like a vineyard. However, I allow the Muscatel's a pretty good fruit. Doesn't catch your eye like the red grapes, but when you put the colorado in the press the wine has a bite and some is mighty sour. The white wine's sweet and fragrant. All the same, you don't get the proper bouquet until the grapes are in the press. What d'you think about my philosophy, Miss Jordan?"
"Sometimes the press hurts," Betty remarked quietly.
"It hurts all the time," said Jefferson and his thin face got grave. "You know this when you have felt the screws. Well, I guess it's done with, but when I hear them sing their Latin psalm In exitu, I understand. Some of us have been in Egypt——"
"Now you are mixing things! You were not in Egypt," Mrs. Jefferson rejoined, and Kit thought she meant to banish her husband's sombre mood.
"Anyhow, Egypt's in Africa and considerably cooler than the swamp where the Cumbria lay. Then I reckon Harry Austin and I made some bricks without much straw."
"Jacinta helped. She has helped a number of people."
"Mrs. Austin has helped me," Kit agreed and looked at Betty. It was strange, but he imagined she did not own her debt to Mrs. Austin.
Soon afterwards it got dark and they went to the flat roof. There was no moon, but the stars were bright and the sky was clear. The soft land-breeze had begun to blow and stirred the mist that rolled down the dark rocks behind the town. Lights twinkled along the sweep of bay and two that swung across a lower group marked Mossamedes rolling at the harbour mouth. Footsteps and broken talk echoed along the narrow street; one heard guitars and somebody began to sing the Africana.
Kit was strangely content. Betty was getting strong again, and he thought her happy; he, himself, had a post he liked, and all went well. His ambitions were not important; he was not moved, as he was moved at Mrs. Austin's, to efforts that would force people to own his talents. In fact, he recovered something of the tranquillity that had marked the afternoons when Betty and he gathered primroses in the woods.