She had gone with Aileen Lawton, her mother's pet aversion, to a party
given by one of those new people whom Mrs. Groome, a massive if crumbling
pillar of San Francisco's proud old aristocracy, held in pious disdain, and
had danced in the magnificent ballroom with the tireless exhilaration of
her eighteen years until the weary band had played Home Sweet Home.

She had never imagined that any entertainment could be so brilliant, even
among the despised nouveaux riches, nor that there were so many flowers
even in California. Her own coming-out party in the dark double parlors of
the old house among the eucalyptus trees, whose moans and sighs could be
heard above the thin music of piano and violin, had been so formal and dull
that she had cried herself to sleep after the last depressed member of the
old set had left on the stroke of midnight. Even Aileen's high mocking
spirits had failed her, and she had barely been able to summon them for
a moment as she kissed the friend, to whom she was sincerely devoted, a
sympathetic good-night.

"Never mind, old girl. Nothing can ever be worse. Not even your own
funeral. That's one comfort."



II


That had been last November. During the ensuing five months Alexina had
been taken by her mother to such entertainments as were given by other
members of that distinguished old band, whose glory, like Mrs. Groome's
own, had reached its meridian in the last of the eighties.