"Oh, I wouldn't miss it for the world. Life would be suicidal in this God-forsaken country if it were not for the hospitality of the San Franciscans. Some months ago two officers whose names I won't mention met in a lonely spot on the coast near Benicia Fort, on the other side of the bay, with the deliberate intention of shooting one another to death. They were discovered in time, and have since been transferred East. It is better for us on account of San Francisco--Whew! how this confounded thing does jolt!--and the Randolph parties are always the gayest of the season. Mr. Randolph is an Englishman with the uncalculating hospitality of the Californian. He has made a pot of money and entertains lavishly. Every pretty girl in San Francisco is a belle, but Nina Randolph is the belle _par excellence_." "Is she a great beauty?" asked Thorpe, indifferently. He was wondering if the driver had lost his way. The wheels were zigzagging through drifts so deep that the sand shot against the panes. "No, I don't know that she is beautiful at all. Miss Hathaway is that, and Mrs. McLane, and two of the 'three Macs'. But she has it all her own way. It's charm, I suppose, and then--well, she's an only child and will come in for a fortune--a right big one if this place grows as people predict. She's a deuced lucky girl, is Miss Nina Randolph, and it will be a deuced lucky fellow that gets her. Only no one does. She's twenty-three and heart-whole." "Are you in love with her?" "I'm in love with her and Guadalupe Hathaway and the 'three Macs' and Mrs. McLane. I never met so many attractive women in one place." "Would it be Mrs. Hunt McLane--a Creole? I met her once in Paris--got to know her very well." "You don't say. She'll make things hum for you. There's something else I wanted to say. I thought I'd wait and see if you discovered it yourself, but I believe I won't. It's this: there's something queer about the Randolphs in spite of the fact that they're more to the front than any people in San Francisco. I never leave that house that I don't carry away a vague impression that there's something behind the scenes I don't know anything about. I've never spoken of it to anyone else; it would be rather disloyal, after all the kindness they've shown me; but I'm too curious to know how they will impress you. I've only been here six months, and only know what everybody else knows about them--" "Do you know, Hastings," said the Englishman abruptly, "I think something is wrong outside. I don't believe anyone is guiding those horses." Hastings lowered the window beside him and thrust out his head. "Hi, there, Tim!" he shouted. "What are you about?" There was no reply. "Hello!" he cried, thinking the wind might have miscarried his voice. Again there was no reply; but the horses, gratefully construing the final syllable to their own needs, came to a full stop.