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48 seen in the dejected and sullen expression that settled on his face. With his hands in his pockets, he stood looking down on his feet in pointed patent-leather shoes, balancing absently on his toes and heels.

"No, thanks," said Gault, whose dislike of the young man did not go far enough to blight his afternoon. "I 'll go into the library. I 've got some letters to read over and answer, and I 'll do it now, while I am waiting."

He turned away and passed through the wide hall-space to the library, a room at the back of the house, where two large windows commanded a view of the Golden Gate and the bay. He had picked up a magazine from a table in the hall, and now, seating himself, prepared to look at it. But he presently threw it aside, and abandoned himself to a dreamy survey of the view.

The magnificent panorama of hills and water lay still and enormous under the afternoon sun. It was not late enough for the summer's drought to have burned the hills, and the nearer ones were a faint, mellow green. Their hollows were filled with clear, amethyst shadows, and the sea lay at their bases, motionless and level like a blue floor. The extraordinary vividness which marks the Californian landscape was softened by the almost imperceptible haze which overlay the scene. The watcher clasped