by
Mary Hallock Foote
CONTENTS
I
The five-o'clock whistle droned through the heat. Its deep, consequentialchest-note belonged by right to the oldest and best paying member of theAsgard group, a famous mining property of northern California.
The Asgard Company owned a square league of prehistoric titles on thewestern slope of the foot-hills,—land enough for the preservation of anatural park within its own boundaries where fire-lines were cleared,forest-trees respected, and roads kept up. Wherever the company erected aboard fence, gate, or building, the same was methodically painted a colorknown as "monopoly brown." The most conspicuous of these objects croppedout on the sunset dip of the property where the woods for twenty yearshad been cut, and the Sacramento valley surges up in heat and glare, withyearly visitations of malaria.
Higher than the buildings in brown, a gray-shingled bungalow ranged itselfon the lap of its broad lawns against a slope of orchard tops climbing tothe dark environment of the forest. Not the original forest: of that onlythree stark pines were left, which rose one hundred feet out of a gulchbelow the house and lent their ancient majesty to the modern uses ofelectric wires and telephone lines. Their dreaming tops were in the sky;their feet were in the sluicings of the stamp-mill that reared its longbrown back in a semi-recumbent posture, resting one elbow on the hill; andbeneath the valley smouldered, a pale mirage by day, by night a vision ofcolor transcendent and rich as the gates of the Eternal City.
At half past five the night watchman, on his way from town, stopped atthe superintendent's gate, ran up the blazing path, and thrust a newspaperbetween the dark blue canvas curtains that shaded the entrance of theporch. For hours the house had slept behind its heat defenses, everyshutter closed, yards of piazza blind and canvas awning fastened down. Thesun, a ball of fire, went slowly down the west. Rose-vines drooped againstthe hanging lattices, printing their watery lines of split bamboo witha shadow-pattern of leaf and flower. The whole house-front was deckedwith dead roses, or roses blasted in full bloom, as if to celebrate withappropriate insignia the passing of the hottest day of the year.
Half-way down the steps the watchman stopped, surprised by a voice frombehind the curtains. He came back in answer to his name.
A thin white hand parted the curtain an inch or two. There was the flickerof a fan held against the light.
"Oh, Hughson, will you tell Mr. Thorne that I am here? He doesn't know Ihave come."
"Tell him that Mrs. Thorne is home?" the man translated slowly.
"Yes. He does not expect me. You will tell him at once, please?"
"Yes, ma'am."
The curtain was fastened again from inside. A woman's step went restlesslyup and down, up and down the long piazza floors, now muffled on a rug, nowlight on a matting, or distinct on the bare boards.
Later a soft Oriental voice inquired, "Wha' time Missa Tho'ne wanta dinna?"
"The usual time, Ito," came the answer; "make no difference for me."
"Lika tea—coffee—after dinna?"
"Tea—iced. Have you some now? Oh, bring