"Partly that." he admitted cooly. "Not that I'd change places with any of those fat millionaires I see shuffling down the steps of the Pacific-Union Club--although I'll admit to you what I wouldn't to these young devils in my class, that I know some socialists who would. I hate the sight of 'em. But I want to do away with class-rights and class-distinctions, not only because I just naturally have no use for them but because I want to put an end to the misery of the world." "You mean the material misery. What would you do with the other seven hundred different varieties?" "Well.... I guess each case would have to take care of itself. Perhaps we'd get round to it after a while. Get power and class-envy out of the world, and some genius, like as not, would invent a post-graduate course of colleges for human nature. All things are possible." "You are an optimist! Here's our car. Come home with me and share the supper that I pay for with the tainted money of a plutocrat. Only we haven't any real plutocrats in San Francisco. Only modest millionaires. Will you?" "Yes." said Mr. Kirkpatrick. "And thank you kindly." He even smiled, for he was developing a latent heavily overlain seed of humor; inherited from the full bay tree that had flourished in his grandfather, born in County Clare, where men sometimes indulged in rebellion but did not take themselves too seriously withal. CHAPTER II I That winter and the following seasons for the next few years passed very rapidly for Alexina. Besides her classes and the constant companionship of her friends (to say nothing of the excitement of helping one or two of them out of not infrequent scrapes), she had for a time the absorbing interest of refurnishing the best part of her house. The square lower hall which had been scantily furnished with the grandfather's clock, a hat-rack, and a settee, and whose walls were covered with "marble paper," was painted, walls and wood, a deep ivory white, and refurnished with light wicker furniture, palms, and growing plants. The hat-rack was abolished, and the small library on the left of the entrance turned into a men's dressing-room. The folding doors were removed from the great double parlors, the "body brussels" replaced by hardwood floors, the walls tinted a pale gray as a background for the really valuable pictures (including the proud and gracious and beautiful Alexina Ballinger, dust long since in Lone Mountain), and the splendid pieces of Italian furniture which had always seemed to sulk and bulge against the dull brown walls. The rep and walnut sets were sent to the auction room and replaced by comfortable chairs and sofas whose colors varied, but harmonized not only with one another but with the rugs that Alexina under Gora's direction had bought at auction. In fact she bought many of her new pieces at auction and with Aileen found it vastly exciting to pore over the advertisements and then go down to the crowded rooms and bid.