as he recognized
her. She did not like the movement he had made in throwing the dirty
water from his washpan directly in her path, although she was some
distance away. Probably by this time he had learned his fate and took
this means of testifying his resentment. The color rose in her pale
face. She was not a proud woman, had no large amount of that
self-importance which is the almost inevitable result of possessing
wealth. But one of the penalties of property is that it cultivates
whatever egotism and sensitiveness to its prerogative its owner is
capable of. That one of the common laborers employed upon her estate
should thus openly flout her made Adelle angry.

She thought first to turn back,--her walk was really aimless,--but she
felt that the man would interpret such a retreat as due to his
impertinence, would think that she was afraid of him. So she kept on
past the shack into another open field. This was but the beginning of a
wild treeless descent towards the ocean. The little tar-paper shack was
the only sign of habitation in sight. There was an immense panorama of
tumbled hill and valley bounded westward by the curving coast-line where
the Pacific surges broke into faint lines of white spume, and where, she
might reflect sadly, the ill-fated Seaboard Railroad should now be
running trains to open up all this unoccupied land to civilization.
However, wild and unsettled as it was, it offered an attractive view,
and Adelle at once coveted it. They must buy up this tract over the
hill--they should have looked into it when they had arranged to take
Highcourt. Thus musing, she wandered on into the country until the sun
dipping into the ocean warned her to return for dinner.

As she came back along the crest of the hill, she thought again of the
discharged stone mason and for her did a large amount of reflection. Why
was he living like this in a lonely shack far away from everybody? Why
had he chosen to isolate himself from his fellow-workmen, who herded
together near the town where they could slip down to the saloons after
their work? He must be by nature a sullen, unsociable fellow. And what
sort of life did he live in there, doing his own washing and probably
also his own cooking? A kind of curiosity about the truculent stone
mason and his way of life thus occupied Adelle's unspeculative mind. He
was a good-looking young fellow, lean and well muscled. If he were
dissipated, as she had been told all the laborers we