After thinking it all over, Adelle rose and dressed herself; then, taking the package of letters, of which she had only casually examined the others, went up the path to the tar-paper shack. It was a hot afternoon, and the mason had only just come back from his task. He had not yet washed, and was sitting before his door, all red and sweaty, smoking his pipe and scratching his arms in a sensuous relaxation of muscles after the day's work. He looked altogether the workman. He did not rise at her approach, but removing his pipe, remarked, as if he had been expecting her visit,-- "Well, did you read the stuff?" "Yes," Adelle replied, holding out the package; "I read some of them." "That's more'n I could do," he said, receiving the letters and staring at them as if they had been Egyptian hieroglyphs. "What could you make out of 'em?" "One thing!" Adelle exclaimed. "Your grandfather and my grandfather must have been own brothers." "You don't say!" Tom Clark exclaimed, throwing back his head and giving vent to that robust, ironical laugh that Adelle had expected. "So old Stan Clark was your great-uncle?" Adelle nodded. "Just think of that now!" and the mason went off into another peal of laughter which made Adelle uncomfortable. He did not take seriously his relationship with the mistress of Highcourt. "I bet old grandfather Stan would have been mighty surprised if he could see his niece and her swell house!" Suddenly the mason rose, and, fetching out a box from his house, said with an elaborate flourish of ironical courtesy,-- "Sit down, cousin, and we'll talk it over." Adelle accepted the seat meekly. "So father's folks didn't really come from Missouri--but from way back East?" he inquired with appreciation of the added aristocracy that this gave the family. "Surely they came from Alton," Adelle replied. "That was where the Clarks had always lived--ever since before the Revolution." "As long as that! Think of it--I'll be damned--beggin' your pardon, cousin!" the mason exclaimed. Except for this familiar use of the term of relationship Tom Clark's attitude was respectful enough, more humorous than anything else, as if the news Adelle had given him merely completed his ironic philosophy of life. He mused,-- "So I had to get into a fight in 'Frisco and come here to work on this job to find out my family connections." He seemed impressed with the devious paths of Providence. "And I had to go all the way from Alton to Paris to find a Californian husband, who brought me out here!" laughed Adelle, who was beginning to comprehend the mason's humor and the situation.