"Especially as I'm going up to Sacramento to-night with some
influential friends," he continued, with an ostentation calculated to
resist the assumption of her charms and her furniture. "Senator Dyce of
Kentucky, and his cousin Judge Briggs; perhaps you know 'em, or maybe
Spencer--I mean Mr. Tucker--does."

"I reckon," said Mrs. Tucker smiling; "but tell me something about the
boys and girls at Vineville, and about yourself. _You're_ looking well,
and right smart too." She paused to give due emphasis to this latter
recognition of a huge gold chain with which her visitor was somewhat
ostentatiously trifling.

"I didn't know as you cared to hear anything about Blue Grass," he
returned, a little abashed. "I've been away from there some time
myself," he added, his uneasy vanity taking fresh alarm at the faint
suspicion of patronage on the part of his hostess. "They're doin' well
though; perhaps as well as some others."

"And you're not married yet," continued Mrs. Tucker, oblivious of the
innuendo. "Ah Cal," she added archly, "I am afraid you are as fickle as
ever. What poor girl in Vineville have you left pining?"

The simple face of the man before her flushed with foolish
gratification at this old-fashioned, ambiguous flattery. "Now look yer,
Belle," he said, chuckling, "if you're talking of old times and you
think I bear malice agin Spencer, why"--

But Mrs. Tucker interrupted what might have been an inopportune
sentimental retrospect with a finger of arch but languid warning. "That
will do! I'm dying to know all about it, and you must stay to dinner
and tell me. It's right mean you can't see Spencer too; but he isn't
back from Sacramento yet."

Grateful as a _tete-a-tete_ with his old neighbor in her more
prosperous surroundings would have been, if only for the sake of later
gossiping about it, he felt it would be inconsistent with his pride and
his assumption of present business. More than that, he was uneasily
conscious that in Mrs. Tucker's simple and unaffected manner there was
a greater superiority than he had ever noticed during their previous
acquaintance. He would have felt kinder to her had she shown any "airs
and graces," which he could have commented upon and forgiven. He
stammered some vague excuse of preoccupation, yet lingered in the hope
of saying something which, if not aggressively unpleasant, might at
least transfer to her indolent serenity some of his own irritation. "I
reckon," he said, as h