He was ready to greet the tenants instead of the cosy cricket, and may
have been the reason why they suddenly departed after only a three
weeks' stay, but as it was a foggy May, as it sometimes is on this
coast, that is an open question. J---- tersely put it, "Frog or fog?"
The smiling Helen smiled more beamingly every day, but the chauffeur
hated it. He was a city product and looked as much at home on that
hill-top as a dancing-master in a hay-field. He smoked cigarettes and
read the sporting page of the paper in the garage, where gasoline rather
deadened the country smells of flowers and hay, and tried to forget his
degrading surroundings, but he was overjoyed when the day to start for
home arrived. I did not share his feelings, and yet I was ready to go.
It had been a great success, and the only time I had felt lonely was in
a crowded restaurant in San Diego, where J---- and I had had many jolly
times in past summers. On the Smiling Hill-Top who could be lonely with
the ever-changing sea and sky and sunsets. I dare not describe the
picture, as I don't wish to be put down as mad or a cubist. Scent of the
honeysuckle, the flutter of the breeze, the song of pink-breasted
linnets and their tiny splashings in the birds' pool outside my
sleeping-porch, the velvet of the sky at night, with its stars and the
motor lights on the highway like more stars below--how I love it all! I
was taking enough of it home with me, I hoped, to last through some
strenuous weeks in Pasadena, until I could come back for the summer,
bringing my family.
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