"No," Aleta answered, hastily. "No, he doesn't ... and he never will." * * * * * Frank told his father something of the conversation. "Its an open secret," said Francisco, "that Ruef and his crew are out for the coin. I'll tell you something else you mustn't print, your paper is determined to expose Ruef. The managing editor is on his way to Washington to confer with President Roosevelt.... The plan is to borrow Francis Heney and William J. Burns." "What? The pair that has been exposing Senators and land frauds up in Oregon?" His father nodded. "Phew!" The young man whistled. "You were right when you predicted that there was a shakeup coming." * * * * * Frank, expecting startling things to happen, kept his mind alert. But the months passed uneventfully. The editor returned from Washington. No sensational announcement followed the event. Later it was rumored that Burns had sent operatives to the city. They were gathering evidence, one understood, but if they did, naught seemed to come of it. Frank was vaguely disappointed. Now and then he saw Aleta, but the subject of their former talk was not resumed. Vaguely he wondered what manner of man was her beloved. Frank resented the idea that he was above her. Aleta was good enough for any man. Bertha was visiting her aunt's home in the East. She had been very restless and capricious just before she went. All women were thus, he supposed. But he missed her. CHAPTER LXXVIII THE FATEFUL MORN On the evening of April 17, 1906, Frank and Bertha, who had recently returned, attended the opera. The great Caruso, whose tenor voice had taken the East by storm, and whose salary was reputed to be fabulous, had come at last to San Francisco. Fremsted, almost equally famous, was singing with him in "Carmen" at the Grand Opera House. All the town turned out in broadcloth, diamonds, silks and décolleté to hear them--a younger generation of San Franciscans assuming a bit uncomfortably that social importance which had not yet become genealogically sure of itself. Frank and Bertha drove down in the electric brougham, for which they had with difficulty found a place along the vehicle-lined curb of Mission street. And, as they were early, they halted in the immense and handsome, though old-fashioned, foyer to observe the crowd. The air was heavy with perfume. "Look at that haughty dame with a hundred-thousand dollar necklace," he smiled. "One would have thought her father was at least a king. Forty years ago he drove a dray.... And that one with the ermine coat and priceless tiara. Wouldn't you take her for a princess? Ah, well, more power to her! But her mother cleaned soiled linen in Washerwoman's Lagoon and her dad renovated cuspidors, swept floors in the Bella Union." But the girl did not seem interested. "I wonder," she remarked a little later, "why it makes so very much--ah--difference ... who one's parents were?"