even fear. She had once gone so far as to give voice
passionately to the dogma that no two mortals had the right to be as
happy as they were; then laughed apologetically and "guessed" that the
old Puritan spirit of her father's people was coming to life in her
Gallic little soul; then, with another change of mood, added defiantly
that it was time America were rid of its baneful inheritance, and that
she would be happy to-day if the skies fell to-morrow. She had flung
herself into her husband's arms, and even while he embraced her the eyes
of his spirit searched for the girl wife who had fled and left this more
subtly fascinating but incomprehensible creature in her place.

II

The morning was Sunday and he sat in the large window of his library that
overlooked the Bay of San Francisco. The house, which stood on one of the
highest hills, he had bought and remodeled for his bride. The books that
lined these walls had belonged to his Ruyler grandfather, bought in a day
when business men had time to read and it was the fashion for a gentleman
to cultivate the intellectual tracts of his brain. The portraits that
hung above, against the dark paneling, were the work of his mother's
father, one of the celebrated portrait painters of his time, and were
replicas of the eminent and mighty he had painted. Maharajas, kings,
emperors, famous diplomats, men of letters, artists of his own small
class, statesmen and several of the famous beauties of their brief day;
these had been the favorite grandson's inheritance from Masewell Price,
and they made an impressive frieze, unique in the splendid homes of the
city of Ruyler's adoption.

He had brought them from New York when he had decided to live in
California, and hung them in his bachelor quarters. He had soon made up
his mind that he must remain in San Francisco for at least ten years if
he would maintain the business he had rescued from the disaster of 1906
at the level where he had, by the severest application of his life,
placed it by the end of 1908. Meanwhile he had grown to like San
Francisco better than he would have believed possible when he arrived in
the wrecked city, still smoking, and haunted with the subtle odors of
fires that had consumed more than products of the vegetable kingdom.

The vast ruin with its tottering arches and broken columns, its lonely
walls looking as if bitten by prehistoric monsters that must haunt this
ancient coast, the soft pastel colors the