as possible, forbade him to admit the contingency of a failure, impelled
him to call such weaknesses as the fortunate condemned by some one of those
interchangeable terms with which the lexicons are so generous.

But if he would not face the word snob he told himself proudly that he was
ambitious; and why should he not aspire to the best society? Was he not
entitled to it by birth? His family may not have been prominent to excess
in Utica, but it was indisputably "old." However, he assured himself that
the chief reason for his determination to mingle with the social elect
of San Francisco was not so much a tribute to his ancestors, or even the
insistence of youth for the decent pleasures of that brief period, but
because of the opportunities to make those friends indispensable to
every young man forced to cut his own way through life. Even if his good
conscience had compelled him to admit that he was a snob he would have
reminded it there was no harm in snobbery anyway. It was the most amiable
of the vices. But he thought too well of himself for any such admission,
and his mind had not been trained to fish, even, in shallow waters.

Nor did he admit that if the lovely Miss Groome had been a stenographer
he would not have looked at her. He would indeed have turned his face
resolutely in the other direction if she had happened to sit in his
employer's office. Fate forbade him a marriage of that sort, and dalliance
with an inferior was forbidden both by his morals and his social integrity.

But that Alexina Groome should be beautiful, as exaltedly born as only
a San Franciscan of the old stock might be, with a determinate income,
however modest, with a background of friendly males, as substantial
financially as socially, who would be sure to give a new member of the
family a leg-up (he liked the atmosphere and flavor of the lighter English
novels), and, above all, responsive, seemed to him a direct reward for the