He was, by his Virginian inheritance, if for no simpler reason, a bon
vivant, but the preoccupations and ordinary conversational subjects
of men irritated him, and he cultivated their society and that of
women only in so far as they were essential to his deeper
understanding of life. His code was noblesse oblige and he privately
damned it as a superstition foisted upon him by his ancestors. He was
sentimental and ironic, passionate and indifferent, frank and subtle,
proud and democratic, with a warm capacity for friendship and none
whatever for intimacy, a hard worker with a strong taste for loafing--
in the open country, book in hand. He prided himself upon his iron
will and turned uneasily from the weeds growing among the fine
flowers of his nature.

Such was Langdon Masters when he came to San Francisco and Madeleine
Talbot.




VIII


He soon tired of plunging through the sand hills between the city
and Ballinger Hill either on horseback or in a hack whose driver, if
the hour were late, was commonly drunk; and took a suite of rooms in
the Occidental Hotel. He had brought his library with him and one
side of his parlor was immediately furnished with books to the
ceiling. It was some time before Society saw anything of him. He had
a quick reputation to make, many articles promised to Eastern
periodicals and newspapers, no mind for distractions.