Everything combined to make him realize uneasily his youth. In England a man of twenty-three was a man-of-the-world if he had had the proper opportunities; but this girl who had infatuated him, and even the far more sympathetic Miss Dwight, made him feel that he was a mere boy; and so had this entire family, however unwittingly. II He spoke of Miss Dwight suddenly, for Alexina, who had been duly enlightened while the men were smoking with Tom, had tactfully conveyed her sympathy, her eyes almost round with fascinated horror and curiosity. He set his teeth and gave a rapid but graphic account of the whole dreadful episode, willing to interest her at any price; and Alexina, sitting opposite on the ground, her long spine curved, her long arms embracing her knees, listened with a breathless interest, spurring him to potent words, even to stressing of detail. "My goodness gracious me!" she ejaculated when he paused. "I should have gone raving mad. You are a perfect wonder. I never heard of anything so gor--perfectly thrilling. And that girl, what did you say her name was?" Gathbroke, who had purposely withheld it, said explosively: "Dwight." "Dwight?" "I think she is a sister of a friend of yours." And he was made as miserable as he could wish by a crimson tide that swept straight from her heart pump up to her widow's peak. "Dwight? Sister? I didn't know he had one. I saw him several times during the fire and he didn't mention her." "I suspect he was too absorbed." Gathbroke muttered the words, but man's instinct of loyalty to his own sex is strong. "A city doesn't burn every day, you know." "Still ... what is she like? Like him?" "I do not remember him at all ... She? Oh, she has a tremendous amount of dark hair that looks as if falling off the top of her head and down her face. Uncommonly heavy eyebrows, and very light gray--Ah, I have it! I have been groping for the word ever since--sinister eyes.... That is the effect in that dark face. She has a curious character, I should think. Not very frank. She--well, she rather struck me as having been born for drama; tragic drama, I am afraid." "Not a bit like her brother. How old is she?" "Twenty-two, she told me." "What--what does she do? They are not a bit well off." He hesitated a moment. "Well--as I recall it, she is studying something or other at the University of California." "And of course she boards down there with her brother, who takes care of her while she is studying to be a teacher or something." Alexina having arranged it to her satisfaction dismissed the subject. She had no mind to betray herself to this good-looking young Englishman who had been sent to her providentially on a very dull day. He would, no doubt, have been frantically interesting if he had not been so idiotic as to fall head over ears the first shot.