He knew what it meant. Dismissal.
One year before, when Cassius Trent died, there had been twenty employees where there were now but thirteen–he the “odd one” of the “baker’s dozen.” Seven times, when least expected or desired, some one of these twenty had found in his room just such an envelope, containing his arrears of wages, and the curt information that, “by the order of Mrs. Trent, his services were no longer required at Sobrante, nor would any wages be forthcoming from that day forward.”
These men had all been friends, rather than servants, and in each case the result had been the same. Cut to the heart by the manner of discharge, and, for the first time it may be, realizing that he was no longer young, and, therefore, valuable, the recipient of the envelope had quietly disappeared, saying farewell to nobody.
“My turn! My turn, at last!” broke from the aged frontiersman’s lips, and a groan followed. “Ten years I’ve lived in this old adobe cell till I’ve come to feel like the monk for whom it was first built. Now––”
The white head drooped forward on the outstretched arms and all the burden of his eighty years seemed suddenly to have descended upon that bowed and shrunken figure.
In the pretty dining-room Antonio Bernal had eaten a hearty supper served by his own mistress, since Wun Lung was not to be found and the house-boy, Pasqual, claimed his usual recreation hour at the rifle practice. But neither thought anything amiss in this, and the manager would, indeed, have asserted that it was quite the proper thing. Was not he a Bernal, and superior to all at Sobrante? Even though he was, for the time being, receiving wage instead of bestowing. Well, it was a long lane that had no turning.
Pushing back from the table, Antonio had murmured the proverb in Spanish, with a smile of satisfaction lighting his dark face, and Mrs. Trent had failed to hear distinctly, though she was familiar enough with the language so often in use about her.
“Beg pardon, I did not understand.”
“Begging pardon, one’s self, senora, it is seldom that you do. It is the business was never made for the small brains of the women, no? ’Tis the senora’s place to be beautiful and let the business rest in the capable hands of I, myself. En verdad.”
Mrs. Trent colored and bit her lip. This man’s insolence was becoming insupportable, and she could scarcely recognize him for the obsequious fellow who had been her husband’s right-hand dependence. His brief authority had turned his head, she reflected, and, again, that she must in no wise offend him. The welfare of her children demanded this, and forcing herself to smile as pleasantly as if his insult were a jest, she remarked: