"Well, Sing Toy," observed the Colonel, as he drove up, "I began to think I wasn't going to get any dinner."
Sing Toy's beady eyes rested on him, and their inscrutable surface clouded and something very like compassion arose from their unsuspected depths.
"My second-uncle, he got sick," said Sing Toy.
IV
The rumour went abroad with astonishing rapidity that Corona del Monte was to pass from its present owner. There were a very few to say I-told-you-so; but the sincere regret was almost universal. The Colonel was not only popular: he represented the good old days that had gone forever. This was the last of the original Ranchos to stand intact on the tax books of the county. All the others had been divided and divided again, new names constantly edging in, until the old names were lost, swamped. Everybody remembered the old lavish fiestas; nobody but at one time or another, whether at occasion of rejoicing or distress, but had received from the overflowing bounty of Corona del Monte, whether it was substantial help in dire need, or merely a bouquet of flowers, a basket of fruit, or a visit instinct with genuine kindly feeling. People gathered on the corners and talked of it, with shakes of the head. It was considered remarkable, of course, that it had not happened long ago. The passing of all grandeurs was in the course of nature. Nothing could be done about it. Certainly no one was to blame. But there was a genuine sorrow over it for a day or two.
This rumour did not reach to the Bungalow until it was two days old; and to the Colonel not at all. Oliver Mills had put off informing his old friend of the contemplated change, partly from cowardice, partly because he wanted to spare pain as long as possible. The situation would in no way be altered by the first of the month. As to Townsend Brainerd and Daphne, the story came to them in such diluted form that it did not arouse any immediate alarm.
"There are always these fool rumours of foreclosure," said Brainerd contemptuously, and dismissed it from his mind.
