, being in love, remembered the countless lovers in the
world. Without deliberately thinking about it, motifs for love-lyrics began to
agitate his brain. Swept away by the creative impulse, he got off the electric
car, without vexation, two blocks beyond his crossing.
    He found a number of persons in the Morse home. Ruth's two girl-cousins were
visiting her from San Rafael, and Mrs. Morse, under pretext of entertaining
them, was pursuing her plan of surrounding Ruth with young people. The campaign
had begun during Martin's enforced absence, and was already in full swing. She
was making a point of having at the house men who were doing things. Thus, in
addition to the cousins Dorothy and Florence, Martin encountered two university
professors, one of Latin, the other of English; a young army officer just back
from the Philippines, one-time schoolmate of Ruth's; a young fellow named
Melville, private secretary to Joseph Perkins, head of the San Francisco Trust
Company; and finally of the men, a live bank cashier, Charles Hapgood, a
youngish man of thirty-five, graduate of Stanford University, member of the Nile
Club and the Unity Club, and a conservative speaker for the Republican Party
during campaigns - in short, a rising young man in every way. Among the women
was one who painted portraits, another who was a professional musician, and
still another who possessed the degree of Doctor of Sociology and who was
locally famous for her social settlement work in the slums of San Francisco. But
the women did not count for much in Mrs. Morse's plan. At the best, they were
necessary accessories. The men who did things must be drawn to the house
somehow.
    »Don't get excited when you talk,« Ruth admonished Martin, before the ordeal
of introduction began.
    He bore himself a bit stiffly at first, oppressed by a sense of his own
awkwardness, especially of his shoulders, which were up to their old trick of
threatening destruction to furniture and ornaments. Also, he was rendered
self-conscious by the company. He had never before been in contact with such
exalted beings nor with so many of them. Hapgood, the bank cashier, fascinated
him, and he resolved to investigate him at the first opportunity. For underneath
Martin's awe lurked his assertive ego, and he felt the urge to measure himself
with these men and women and to find out what they had learned from the books
and life which he had not learned.
    Ruth's eyes roved to him