Tom Dupuy seated himself on the ottoman beside her with cousinly liberty. ‘Oh, it don’t matter a bit, Nora,’ he answered with his own peculiar gallantry. ‘I don’t mind. In fact, I came over on purpose this evening, knowing Uncle Theodore was out, because I’d got something very particular I wanted to talk over with you in private.’ ‘In-deed,’ Nora answered emphatically. ‘I’m surprised to hear it. I assure you, Tom, I’m absolutely ignorant on the subject of cane-culture.’ ‘Girls brought up in England mostly are,’ Tom Dupuy replied with the air of a man who generously makes a great concession. ‘They don’t appear to feel much interest in sugar, like other people. I suppose in England there’s nothing much grown except corn and cattle.—But that wasn’t what I came over to talk about to-night, Nora. I’ve got something on my mind that Uncle Theodore and I have been thinking over, and I want to make a proposition to you about it.’ ‘Well, Tom?’ ‘Well, Nora, you see, it’s like this. As you know, Orange Grove is Uncle Theodore’s to leave; and after his time, he’ll leave it to you, of course; but Pimento Valley’s entailed on me; and that being so, Uncle Theodore lets me have it on lease during his lifetime, so that, of course, whatever I spend upon it in the way of permanent improvements is really spent in bettering what’s practically as good as my own property.’ ‘I understand. Quite so.—Have a cup of tea?’ ‘Thank you.—Well, Pimento Valley, you know, is one of the very best sugar-producing estates in the whole island. I’ve introduced the patent Browning regulators for the centrifugal process; and I’ve imported some of these new Indian mongooses that everybody’s talking about, to kill off the cane-rats; and I’ve got some splendid stock rattoons over from Mauritius; and altogether, a finer or more creditable irrigated estate I don’t think you’ll find—though it’s me that says it—in the island of Trinidad. Why, Nora, at our last boiling, I assure you the greater part of the liquor turned out to be seventeen over proof; while the molasses stood at twenty-nine specific gravity; giving a yield, you know, of something like one hogshead decimal four on the average to the acre of canes under cultivation.’ Nora held up her fan carelessly to smother a yawn. ‘I daresay it did, Tom,’ she answered with obvious unconcern; ‘but, you know, I told you I didn’t understand anything on earth about sugar; and you said it wasn’t about that that you wanted to talk to me in private this evening.’ ‘Yes, yes, Nora; you’re quite right; it isn’t. It’s about a far deeper and more interesting subject than sugar that I’m going to speak to you.’ (Nora mentally guessed it must be rum.) ‘I only mentioned these facts, you see, just to show you the sort of yield we’re making now at Pimento Valley. Last year, we did five hundred hogsheads, and two hundred and eighty-four puncheons. A man who does a return like that, of course, must naturally be making a very tidy round little income.’