he didn't care a hang about
California. At this point in his reflections he became aware that Colton
was turning his head with a sort of slow significance. He looked up and
watched a pale eyelash drop over a deep gleam of intelligence. Mr.
Leslie finished speaking, and Gwynne replied with an elaborate
politeness, which might be his vehicle for spontaneous sympathy or utter
indifference.

"Thank you all very much for your confidence in me, and also for
preventing me from making what no doubt would have been a serious
mistake. I have no desire whatever for the Japanese as a neighbor. I was
one of the few to recognize the menace of Japan to Occidental
civilization when all the world was sympathizing with it during its war
with Russia, and they will get no encouragement from me. So the matter
is settled as far as I am concerned."

"Shake!" said Mr. Wheaton, in a deep rumbling voice.

The four shook hands solemnly with their new neighbor, then, with even a
greater gusto, drank his health. Gwynne suddenly remembering the
California tradition, and the ducks, invited them to remain for supper;
but all declined except Colton, who sent his wife a message by his
father-in-law. The other three climbed into Judge Leslie's surrey and
departed, Colton remarking, apologetically, and somewhat wistfully:

"She's dining at the judge's and won't miss me: I never leave her alone.
I'll get back in time to take her home."

XIII

Mariana cooked the ducks with the skill of the unsung _chef_ she was,
and enhanced them with other delicacies for which she alone had a name.
Gwynne, faithless to Isabel's crude though honest effort, rose to gayety
and wondered whether California was practising the insidious methods of
the wife. Colton, absent of eye, disposed of his share of the repast as
negatively as he did most things, and as soon as they had retired to the
veranda produced a bag of peanuts from his pocket, without which, he
remarked, no meal was complete. Gwynne declined the national delicacy,
feeling that diplomacy had its limits, and lit a pipe, wondering how he
should lead his new friend to give him some practical political
information. He detected the guile under that bland, almost vacant
exterior, and Colton's prattle about duck-shooting and deer-hunting,
although apparently endless, did not divert him for a moment. But he had
less trouble than he had anticipated. Colton's mind seldom roved far
from politics, and it required l