me like that--perhaps he need not know?" she
asked.

"I think that he had better know!... Bring him to see me when he comes
and we can talk it over together, all three of us," the judge suggested.

"I will do that!"

"And now I want you to give me the pleasure of lunching with me, a very
simple old man's lunch, when we can talk about other things than money!"
And with another gentle smile the judge took Adelle's arm and hobbled
out to the next room.

A cheerful bar of sunlight fell across the small table between the two
napkins and made the old silver gleam. Adelle felt more at peace, more
calmly content with life, than she had since the death of her child. She
was sure that somehow it was all coming out right, not only the money
from Clark's Field, but also her own troubled life, although she could
not see the precise steps to be taken. As usual her destiny, after
leading her by many devious routes, brought her to the one door where
she might obtain light....

"Tell me," said her host in his courteous tones, "about your
California--I have always wanted to go there some day."

XLVII

When Adelle descended from her room to the hotel parlor to meet her
cousin on his arrival, she was conscious of trepidation. However the
matter might turn out in the end, she must now give the young mason a
first disappointment, and she was keenly aware of what that might be to
him after dreaming his dream all these weeks of freedom and power that
was unexpectedly to be his. She did not like to disappoint him, even
temporarily, and she also felt somewhat foolish because she had so
confidently assumed that it would be a simple matter to set the Clark
inheritance right.

The stone mason was sitting cornerwise on his chair in the hotel room,
twirling on his thumb a new "Stetson" hat that he had purchased as part
of his holiday equipment. There was nothing especially bizarre in the
costume that Tom Clark had chosen. Democracy has eradicated almost
everything individual or picturesque in man's attire. The standard
equipment may be had in every town in the land. There remains merely the
fine distinction of being well dressed against being badly dressed, and
Clark was badly dressed, as any experienced eye such as Adelle's could
see at a glance. Nothing he had on fitted him or became him. A very red
neck and face emerged from a high white collar, and those muscular arms
that Adelle had always admired for their color of copper bro