knowing that Howard was safe she gave herself to pleasure once more.
After all there was a certain satisfaction in the assurance that her
husband could not be with her if he would. She was not deliberately
neglected and it was positive that he never entered the Club. She
told no one but Sally Ballinger of her adventure, and although
Travers was a favorite of her mother, this devoted friend adroitly
managed that the gentleman to whom she applied many excoriating
adjectives should not be invited that summer to "the ranch."




VII


Langdon Masters arrived in San Francisco during Madeleine's third
winter. He did not come unheralded, for Travers bragged about him
constantly and asserted that San Francisco could thank him for an
editorial writer second to none in the United States of America. As a
matter of fact it was on Masters' achievement alone that the editor of
the _Alta California_ had invited him to become a member of his staff.

Masters was also a cousin of Alexander Groome, and arrived in San
Francisco as a guest at the house on Ballinger Hill, a lonely outpost
in the wastes of rock and sand in the west.

There was no excitement in the female breast over his arrival for
young men were abundant; but Society was prepared to welcome him not
only on account of his distinguished connections but because his
deliberate choice of San Francisco for his future career was a