Page:Barbour--Joan of the ilsand.djvu/121

Rh catching sight of Joan, watching from the deck of the Kestrel, he joined her on the ketch. "I fancy, as you have been as quiet as the grave all this time, you've not found your fortune yet," she said quizzically.

"Not yet," he replied. "You know, Miss Trent, one good pearl a day would amount to a fortune if we could keep it up for a while." There was the faintest trace of resentment in the way he spoke, and the girl was quick to notice it.

"I know how true that is, Mr. Keith," she said more seriously. "Please don't think of me as a wet blanket in this. You must remember that I have been all through it so often, and that nobody knows better than I how difficult it will be to regain lost ground once the plantation really begins to slide back. It is sliding now—it has been doing so far too long. Ever since I first came to the South Seas I have tried to regard myself as a sort of supernumerary, helping Chester in every way that lay in my power and checking him only when I really felt it necessary. Even now, though I strongly suspect this is all time and money wasted, I am not standing in Chester's way. His welfare is all that I—all that I think about."

Keith was watching a gull sailing in stately grace overhead, but though his eyes took in the creature's movements his mind was concerned with other things. He had been listening to the girl intently,