e. Beneath
the balcony was an arcade where many seats were disposed among palms and
pampas grass. The inevitable fountain was at the end of the room; it was
of white stone, and colored lights played upon its foaming column. The
musicians were in the gallery above it.

When Gwynne and Isabel descended the steps and stood looking down upon
the scene for a moment, the younger people were dancing. Every woman
seemed to have been fired with the ambition to contribute her own part
to the brilliancy of the night. There were tiaras by the score in these
days, and the gowns had journeyed half-way round the world. There had
been imported gowns in the immortal Eighties, when Mrs. Yorba reigned,
but never a tiara; and Isabel for the first time fully realized the
significant changes worked by the vast modern fortunes and their
ambitious owners. Blood might have been enough for their predecessors,
but the outward and visible sign for them.

And all sets were represented to-night. It is doubtful if any woman had
done as much to entice them to a common focus as the surmounting Mrs.
Hofer. She was not the leader of San Francisco society, for that office
was practically an elective one, and meant an infinite amount of trouble
with corresponding perquisites; it must be held by a woman of supreme
tact, experience, executive ability, and practically nothing else to do.
The present incumbent, to the infinite credit of San Francisco, was a
member of one of the oldest and most distinguished families in
California; or in America, for that matter; and although still young,
and with less to spend in a year than the Hofers wasted in a week, she
had been chosen, after the death of the old leader, and some acrimonious
discussion, to rule; and rule she did with a rod of iron. But she took
her good where she found it, and was grateful for what Mrs. Hofer, with
her beautiful house and irresistible energy had already accomplished.
For Mrs. Hofer was by no means too democratic. If she had drawn all
factions to her house she had taken care that only the best of her own
kind came too, and this best was very good indeed; for it was educated
and accomplished, more often than not had mingled in society abroad; an
honor to which many of the ancient aristocracy had never aspired. No one
recognized this fact, and the irresistible law of progress, better than
the Leader, in spite of her Spanish blood; and to-night she sat in the
very centre of the north gallery,