On the stock market he could step warily and no one the wiser.
It would have horrified him to be called a piker, for his instincts were
really lavish, and the economical habit an achievement in which he took a
resentful pride.
IV
On this evening he had talked almost incessantly to Alexina, and she,
in the vocabulary of her years and set, had thought him frantically
interesting as he described the immediate command of the city assumed by
General Funston, the efforts of the Committee of Fifty, formed early that
morning by leading citizens, to help preserve order and to give assistance
to the refugees; of rich young men, and middle-aged citizens who had not
spent an afternoon away from their club window for ten years, carrying
dynamite in their cars through the very flames; of wild and terrible
episodes he had witnessed or heard of during the day.
His brain was hot from the mental and physical atmosphere of the perishing
city, the unique excitement of the day: when he had felt as if snatched
from his quiet pasture by the roots; and by the extraordinary good fortune
that had delivered this perfect girl and her formidable parent almost into
his hands. Under his sternly controlled exterior his spirits sang wildly
that his luck had turned, and dazzling visions of swift success and
fulfillment of all ambitions snapped on and off in his stimulated brain.
Alexina thought him not only immoderately fascinating in his appeal to her
own imperious youth, but the most interesting life partner that a romantic
maiden with secret intellectual promptings could demand.
Pages:
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56