Produced by Tiffany Vergon, Charles Aldarondo and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team
Several people who enter casually into this novel are leadingcharacters in other novels and stories of the "California Series,"which covers the social history of the state from the beginning of thelast century. They are Gwynne, his mother, Lady Victoria Gwynne, IsabelOtis and the Hofers in ANCESTORS; the Randolphs in A DAUGHTER OF THEVINE; Lee Tarlton, Lady Barnstable, Lady Arrowmount, Coralie Geary, theMontgomerys and Trennahans in TRANSPLANTED and THE CALIFORNIANS;Rezánov in the novel of that name, and Chonita Iturbi y Moncada in THEDOOMSWOMAN, both bound in the volume, BEFORE THE GRINGO CAME; The PriceRuylers in THE AVALANCHE.
The long street rising and falling and rising again until its farthestcrest high in the east seemed to brush the fading stars, was desertedeven by the private watchmen that guarded the homes of the apprehensivein the Western Addition. Alexina darted across and into the shadows ofthe avenue that led up to her old-fashioned home, a relic of SanFrancisco's "early days," perched high on the steepest of the casualhills in that city of a hundred hills.
She was breathless and rather frightened, for although of anadventurous spirit, which had led her to slide down the pillars of theverandah at night when her legs were longer than her years, and duringthe past winter to make a hardly less dignified exit by a side doorwhen her worthy but hopelessly Victorian mother was asleep, this wasthe first time that she had been out after midnight.
And it was five o'clock in the morning!
She had gone with Aileen Lawton, her mother's pet aversion, to a partygiven by one of those new people whom Mrs. Groome, a massive ifcrumbling pillar of San Francisco's proud old aristocracy, held inpious disdain, and had danced in the magnificent ballroom with thetireless exhilaration of her eighteen years until the weary band hadplayed 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 manyflowers even in California. Her own coming-out party in the dark doubleparlors of the old house among the eucalyptus trees, whose moans andsighs could be heard above the thin music of piano and violin, had beenso formal and dull that she had cried herself to sleep after the lastdepressed member of the old set had left on the stroke of midnight.Even Aileen's high mocking spirits had failed her, and she had barelybeen able to summon them for a moment as she kissed the friend, to whomshe was sincerely devoted, a sympathetic good-night.
"Never mind, old girl. Nothing can ever be worse. Not even your ownfuneral. That's one comfort."
That had been last November. During the ensuing five months Alexina hadbeen taken by her mother to such entertainments as were given by othermembers of that distinguished old band, whose glory, like Mrs. Groome'sown, had reached its meridian in the last of the eighties.
Not that any one else in San Francisco was quite as exclusive as Mrs.Groome. Others might be as faithful in