Mingled with his exaltation, which was the more seductive
that it had no well-defined foundation for existing, and implied
no future responsibility, was a recurrence of his uneasiness at the
impending visit of Richardson the next day. Strangely enough, it had
increased under the stimulus of the evening. Just as he was really
getting on with the family, he felt sure that this visitor would import
some foreign element into their familiarity, as Minty had done. It was
possible they would not like him: now he remembered there was
really something ostentatiously British and insular about this
Richardson--something they would likely resent. Why couldn't this fellow
have come later--or even before? Before what? But here he fell asleep,
and almost instantly slipped from this veranda in the Sierras, six
thousand miles away, to an ancient terrace, overgrown with moss and
tradition, that overlooked the sedate glory of an English park. Here he
found himself, restricted painfully by his inconsistent night-clothes,
endeavoring to impress his mother and sisters with the singular
virtues and excellences of his American host and hostesses--virtues and
excellences that he himself was beginning to feel conscious had become
more or less apocryphal in that atmosphere.
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