And she had struggled valiantly against becoming an embittered old maid;
in the main, had succeeded. To the world, at least, she rarely turned a
scowl, and she had never lost a friend. But there were times when she
hated her parents. Since Isabel's return she had had more than one
rebellious hour, for Isabel had taken her life in both hands, snapped
her fingers at restraints and small conventions, and, so far, at least,
had made good. And the younger girl's development, to one that had known
her always, was extraordinary. On the other hand, she exulted in the
prospect of a member of the old set coming prominently to the front once
more. She had spent a week with Isabel at Old Inn, and received a
certain measure of confidence. She hoped that Isabel would really make a
fortune, and urged her to follow Gwynne's example and put up a modern
building on her San Francisco property. Money was easy to raise, for
change and improvement possessed San Franciscans like an epidemic, and
few but were not anxious to convert "South of Market Street" into a
great business district. Although she was grateful to the new people,
particularly Ada Hofer, who, to use the lady's own expression "made
things hum," in her heart she disliked the breed, and deeply resented
the fact that the old set, even those by no means impoverished, to-day
formed little more than a background. They were to be seen everywhere,
they were still a power in a way, but they were by no means prosilient.
Therefore, as she sat in the old dark dining-room on Russian Hill and
listened to Isabel's praise of the interest that Hofer and his set took
in the political and artistic regeneration of the city, she was moved to
break out tartly:

"Are you giving them credit for altruism? They have their millions
invested here, naturally they crave a reasonable prospect of retaining
them--also of increasing them by filling Fairmont, and other projected
caravansaries for the rich, with winter tourists from the East; possibly
Europe. They not only fear the corporation cormorants--whom they can
never reach so long as the Board of Supervisors is controlled by the
Boss--the Boss himself and all his devouring horde, but the greatest
menace of all: that San Francisco will in time, and before very long, be
owned body and soul by the labor-unions. Then, even if they managed to
save their wealth, the city would be intolerable for the socially
ambitious or even the merely refined."

"You are un