remarked,--

"You've got a nice place up here for your house."

The mason wrinkled his lips against the suggestion of sentiment.

"The shack's all right--kind of fur to tote supplies over the hill. But
I can't stand those dagoes and their dirty ways. They have too many
boarders where they live."

His American ancestry betrayed itself thus in his selection of an
exclusive position for his bunk. The conversation seemed to have come to
a natural conclusion, but Adelle did not start. At last she said what
she had had in mind for some time,--

"You'd better stay here--come back to work Monday."

"I don't know as I want to," the mason replied, with a touch of his
former truculency. "I can get all the work I want most anywheres."

"I'll speak to Mr. Ferguson about it," Adelle said. "Good-night!"

She could not do more, she thought, as she hurried along the path,
although she was unreasonably anxious not to have the young stone mason
leave, more anxious than she had been that morning to have him
discharged for his insolence to her. When she was about to enter the
wood, she turned and looked back at the shack. She hoped that he was not
going to start on a spree. The mason, who had been sitting on the step
where she had left him, rose as if he had come to a sudden resolution
and marched into the shack. Adelle felt sure that he had made up his
mind to go to San Francisco and get his "booze." She divined the craving
in him for excitement, some relief from his toilsome hours under the hot
sun. Possibly he had fought against this desire all the summer,
restrained from breaking loose by a prudence which she had defeated by
arbitrarily discharging him from his job and could not so easily restore
with her change of whim. She did not feel any personal blame for his
action, however, nor did she blame him for yielding to this gross
temptation, as her more conservative neighbors might, although they
sometimes yielded themselves both to drink and the stock market to
stimulate their nerves. She merely hoped that he would think better of
his purpose. For the man interested her, and before she dressed for
dinner she sent a servant to the village with a note for the contractor,
asking him to reengage the discharged stone mason and be sure that he
came back to work on the Monday.

XXXVI

Nevertheless, when Adelle looked for him the next Monday morning his was
not among the faces of the men at work on the lofty retaining wall.