attending evening lectures at the University of California with his sister.
But for this form of mental exertion he had no taste, keenly as he applied
himself to his work during the hours of business; and he assured himself
that such knowledge would do him no good anyway. It did not seem to be
prevalent in society. If he had been a brilliant hand at bridge or poker,
the inner fortifications of society would have gone down before him, but
his courage did not run to card gambling with wealthy idlers who set their
own pace. On the stock market he could step warily and no one the wiser.
It would have horrified him to be called a piker, for his instincts were
really lavish, and the economical habit an achievement in which he took a
resentful pride.



IV


On this evening he had talked almost incessantly to Alexina, and she,
in the vocabulary of her years and set, had thought him frantically
interesting as he described the immediate command of the city assumed by
General Funston, the efforts of the Committee of Fifty, formed early that
morning by leading citizens, to help preserve order and to give assistance
to the refugees; of rich young men, and middle-aged citizens who had not
spent an afternoon away from their club window for ten years, carrying
dynamite in their cars through the very flames; of wild and terrible
episodes he had witnessed or heard of during the day.

His brain was hot from the mental and physical atmosphere of the perishing
city, the unique excitement of the day: when he had felt as if snatched
from his quiet pasture by the roots; and by the extraordinary good fortune