"I had fifty dollars. I was doing relief work at the Presidio, waiting for the vaults to cool off—I had a lot of paper money in a box there—and for the insurance companies to pay—and for the man who looked after my affairs to get well: he'd been hurt in the earthquake. But he didn't get well: he had a stroke, instead, and died. And his partner—they were lawyers—went away; all their books and papers and everything had been burnt up, and he didn't seem to think he could ever straighten things out; and when the vaults were opened, the paper money I had in the box was all dust—and the insurance companies haven't paid."
She shrugged her shoulders delicately over the situation, already disgusted with herself at having descended to disclosing her private affairs to a stranger.
Meanwhile, "So that's it," the stranger was saying. "I've wondered a lot."
"You needn't have troubled."
"No trouble," he blandly assured her. "Houghton always was an ass"—(Houghton was the younger lawyer. How had he known? the girl wondered)—"lighting out for Goldfield when he ought to be here, straightening out his clients' business. And so you went to work on some beggarly salary, instead of seeing about having your property put in shape again. Why didn't you lease, or——"
"I couldn't find out where it was," she retorted, furious. "I'd only been here a week when the fire came; and not for years before that."
——"and not put yourself in a position where you get insulted by some little scrub who isn't fit for you to walk on.—Are you going to faint?"
"No."
"Then what's the matter?" inquired the clod at her side.
"Nothing," she fibbed promptly. How different this creature was from Bixler McFay! Bixler had never pried into her private affairs, or evinced an interest in her possessions, or insisted on answers she did not wish to give, or pursued topics she did not care for. Bixler had none of the bluntness, the pigheadedness, the brutality of this—but then, there was no comparing the two. Only, she had vowed not to think of Bixler any more. He was not worth it.