A sudden greenness in the sward and brilliant glimpses of flower-beds pieced in between dark tree-trunks, told of the proximity of the house. It was a massive structure, architecturally ugly, but gaining a sort of majesty from its own ponderous bulk and from the splendor of lawns and trees about it. The last level rays of the sun were now flooding grass and garden, piercing bosky thickets where greens melted into greens, and sleeping on stretches of close-cropped emerald turf. From among the smaller trees the lordly blue pines—that with the oaks were once the only denizens of the long rich valley—soared up, lonely and somber. Their crests, stirred by passing airs, emitted eolian murmurings, infinitely mournful, as if repining for the days when they had ruled alone.
At the bend in the drive where the road turned off to the stables Shackleton alighted and walked over the grass toward the house. The curious silence that is so marked a characteristic of the California landscape wrapped the place and made it seem like an enchanted palace held in a spell of sleep. Not a leaf nor pendent flower-bell stirred. In this hour of warmth and stillness evanescent breaths of fragrance rose from the carpets of violets that were beginning to bloom about the roots of the live-oaks.
As he reached the house Maud and a young man came round the corner and approached him. The girl was dressed in a delicate and elaborate gown of pale pink frilled with much lace, and with the glint of falling ribbons gleaming here and there. She carried a pink parasol over her shoulder, and against the background of variegated greens her figure looked modish as a fashion-plate. It was a very becoming and elegant costume, and one in which most young girls would have looked their best.
Maud, who was not pretty, was the type of woman who looks least well in handsome habiliments. Her irremediable commonness seemed thrown into higher prominence by adornment. The softly-tinted dress robbed her pale skin of all glow and made her lifeless brown hair look duller. She had a round, expressionless face, prominent pale-blue eyes, and a chin that receded slightly. She was not so plain as she was without vivacity, interest, or sparkle of youth. With her matter-of-fact manner, heavy figure, and large, unanimated face she might have been forty instead of twenty-one.
She was somewhat laboriously coquetting with her companion, a tall, handsome young Southerner, some six or seven years her senior, whom her father recognized as one of his superior clerks and shrewdly suspected of matrimonial designs. At sight of her parent a slight change passed over her face. She smiled, but not so spontaneously; her speech faltered, and she said, coming awkwardly forward:
“Oh, Popper! you’re late to-day; were you delayed?”
“Evidently, considering I’m an hour later than usual. Howdy, Latimer; glad to see you down.”
He stopped and looked at them with the slightest inquiring smile. Though he said nothing to indicate it, both, knowing him in different aspects, felt he was not pleased. His whole personality seemed to radiate a cold antagonism.
“It’s good you got down anyhow,” said Maud constrainedly; “this is much nicer than town, isn’t it, Mr. Latimer?”
All the joy had been taken out of Latimer by his chief’s obvious and somewhat terrifying displeasure. Had he been alone with Maud, he would have known well how to respond to her remark with Southern fervency of phrase. But now he only said with stiff politeness: