The potato baron had followed Parker and his daughter into the patio, and stood now, showing all of his teeth in an amiable smile.  Parker suddenly remembered his guest.

“My dear,” he addressed his wife, “I have brought a guest with me.  This is Mr. Okada, of whom I wrote you.”

Okada bowed low—­as low as the rules of Japanese etiquette prescribe, which is to say that he bent himself almost double.  At the same time, he lifted his hat.  Then he bowed again twice, and, with a pleasing smile proffered his hand.  Mrs. Parker took it and shook it with hearty good will.

“You are very welcome, Mr. Okada,” she shrilled.  “Murray,” she added, turning to the butler, who was approaching with Okada’s suitcase, “show the gentleman to the room with the big bed in it.  Dinner will be ready at six, Mr. Okada.  Please do not bother to dress for dinner.  We’re quite informal here.”

“Sank you very much,” he replied, with an unpleasant whistling intake of breath; with another profound bow to the ladies, he turned and followed Murray to his room.

“Well, John,” Mrs. Parker demanded, as the Japanese disappeared, “your little playmate’s quite like a mechanical toy.  For heaven’s sake, where did you pal up with him?”

“That’s the potato baron of the San Joaquin valley, Kate,” he informed her.  “I’m trying to interest him in a colonization scheme for his countrymen.  A thousand Japs in the San Gregorio can raise enough garden-truck to feed the city of Los Angeles—­and they will pay a whooping price for good land with water on it.  So I brought him along for a preliminary survey of the deal.”

“He’s very polite, but I imagine he’s not very brilliant company,” his wife averred frankly.  “When you wired me you were bringing a guest, I did hope you’d bring some jolly young jackanapes to arouse Kay and me.”

She sighed and settled back in her comfortable rocking-chair, while Kay, guided by a maid, proceeded to her room.  A recent job of calcimining had transformed the room from a dirty grayish, white to a soft shade of pink; the old-fashioned furniture had been “done over,” and glowed dully in the fading light.  Kay threw open the small square-hinged window, gazed through the iron bars sunk in the thick walls, and she found herself looking down the valley, more beautiful than ever now in the rapidly fading light.

“I’ll have to wait outside for him,” she thought.  “It will be dark when he gets here.”

She washed and changed into a dainty little dinner dress, after which she went on a tour of exploration of the hacienda.  Her first port of call was the kitchen.

“Nishi,” she informed the cook, “a gentleman will arrive shortly after the family has finished dinner.  Keep his dinner in the oven.  Murray will serve it to him in his room, I think.”

She passed out through the kitchen, and found herself in the rear of the hacienda.  A hundred yards distant, she saw Pablo Artelan squatting on his heels beside the portal of his humble residence, his back against the wall.  She crossed over to him, smiling as she came.