"It sounds as if they were nice and genteel. Not the flashy, fashionable kind. And their mother dying when they were so young--that makes a difference."
"It was Crowder got you acquainted with them?" said the old man.
Charlie Crowder was a college chum of Mark's who had spent several vacations on the ranch and who was regarded by the Burrages as a fount of wisdom. Mark from the steps said yes, Crowder had taken him to the house.
There was a pause after this, the parents sunk in gratified musings. The farmer, the simple, unaspiring male, saw no further than the fact of Mark a guest in George Alston's home, but Mother had far-reaching fancies, glimpsed future possibilities. It was she who broke the silence, observing casually as if all doors must be open to her brilliant son,
"I'm glad you know them, honey. There's no better companions for a young man making his way, than quiet, refined girls."
Sadie saw it as astonishing. She could hardly encompass the thought of her brother, a few years ago working on the ranch like a hired man, now moving in the glittering spheres that she read about in the Sunday edition of the _Sacramento Courier._
"Oh, now and again. I haven't much time for calling."
It was Mark who turned the conversation, difficult at first. The farmer was tractable, but Mother and Sadie showed a tendency to cling to the Alston sisters. He finally diverted their attention by telling them about Pancha Lopez, the greaser girl, who was the new leading woman at the Albion Opera House, and a friend of Charlie Crowder's. Mother forgot the Alstons.
"You don't know _her_, do you, Mark?" she said uneasily.
The farmer stirred and rumbled warningly out of the darkness,
"And you don't want to, son. A hard-working boy don't want to waste his time lallygaggin' round with actresses."
When they dispersed for the night, Mother noticed that Mark was abstracted, almost as if he was depressed. No one else saw it; eyes and tongues were heavy at bedtime on the ranch. Sadie, dragging up the stairs to be awake tomorrow at sunrise, might have been depressed but she wasn't. And the farmer and his wife, creaking about in their stuffy room over the kitchen, their old bones stiff with fatigue, were elated.