himself said that he raised nothing but mild Hell on his forty acres.
He did have an olive orchard, a small orange grove flourishing by luck
of a warm gorge in the hills, and a little fancy stock. Kate and
Masters took possession of the new guest at the gate, and carried him
over the estate for inspection. Mainly, Bertram took this
entertainment sullenly. He warmed a little at the sight of the cattle.
The house, built by Masters's own design, drew only the comment,
"pretty nice." After that, Bertram was free to go to his room and
dispose his belongings. Returning in a marvelously short time, he came
out upon the house-party, grouped all in the big, redwood ceiled
living-room.

A fire of driftwood snapped with metallic crackling on the hearth.
Alice Needham sat with Dr. French beside it; Mrs. Masters, pausing in
a flight of supervision, had stopped to speak with them; Alice was
looking up at her, presenting her fresh, full-faced view to the gaze
of the man on the staircase. Marion Slater stood with Masters by one
of the Dutch windows, criticizing the design with a painter's half-arm
gestures. Banks, by another window, sat dividing his time between a
book and the valley below.

It happened then, as Bertram stood there, that Alice Needham looked in
his direction. It happened, also, that she was smiling. He caught her
smile and smiled back.

That smile was half the secret of his physical charm. In the first
place, it broke with wholly unexpected force. His face, what with
its heaviness of feature, was a little forbidding and severe. As he
bent his unillumined gaze, he appeared stern--even angry. Then, with
the sudden preliminary vibration of an earthquake, that smile
would begin to quiver about his mouth, to start wrinkles about his
eyes. Next, as he bent his head forward toward the target of his
charms, it drew back the corners of his mouth to show his white teeth,
it pulled eyelids and eyebrows into a tiny slit, through which his
pupils twinkled like electric sparks. These movements--wholly
muscular at that--spiritualized and transformed his face.

Mrs. Masters, looking up at the interruption, was caught in this
flood of charm and good will. Harry Banks, feeling a psychic current
running about the room, looked up also; and that smile caught him. It
carried away the last trace of his perverse mood. And Bertram heaved
himself down the stairs and crossed at once to seat himself beside
Alice Needham.

"I see at a glanc