James, too wise in the habits of earthquakes to permit the still distracted
cook to make a fire in the range, brewed the coffee over a spirit lamp, and
then departed, nothing loath, on his mission. Mrs. Groome swallowed the
coffee hastily, handed the cup to Alexina and burst into tears.

"Mother!" Alexina was really terrified for the first time that morning.
Mrs. Groome practiced the severe code, the repressions of her class, and
what tears she had shed in her life, even over the deaths of those almost
forgotten children, had been in the sanctity of her bedroom. Alexina, who
had grown up under her wing, after many sorrows and trials had given her a
serenity that was one secret of her power over this impulsive child of
her old age, could hardly have been more appalled if her mother had been
stricken with paralysis.

"You cannot understand," sobbed Mrs. Groome. "This is my city! The city of
my youth; the city my father helped to make the great and wonderful city
it is. Even your father--he may not have been a good husband--Oh, no! Not
he!--but he was a good citizen; he helped to drag San Francisco out of the
political mire more than once. And now it is going! It has always been
prophesied that San Francisco would burn to the ground some time, and now
the time has come. I feel it in my bones."

This was the first reference other than perfunctory, that Alexina had ever
heard her mother make to her father, who had died when she was ten. The
girl realized abruptly that this elderly parent who, while uniformly kind,
had appeared to be far above the ordinary weaknesses of her sex, had an
inner life which bound her to the plane of mere mortals. She had a sudden
vision of an unhappy married life, silently borne, a life of suppressions,
bitter disappointments. Her chief compensation had been the unwavering
pride which had made the world forget to pity her.