The jewel dealer took
the card with some surprise. Everybody knew that he was at the
Empire Club. It is a colony thing with chambers for foreign
guests. A list of arrivals is always printed. He saw at a
glance that it was not a man's card; the size was too large.
Then he turned it over before the light of the fire. The name
was engraved in script, an American fashion at this time.
The woman's card had surprised him; but the name on it brought
him up in his chair - "Mrs. A. B. Farmingham." It was not a name
that he knew precisely; but he knew its genera, the family or
group to which it belonged. Mr. Jefferson removed titles of
nobility in the American republic, but his efforts did not
eliminate caste zones. It only made the lines of cleavage more
pronounced. One knew these zones by the name formation.
Everybody knew "Alfa Baba" Farmingham, as the Sunday Press was
accustomed to translate his enigmatical initials. Some wonderful
Western bonanza was behind the man. Mrs. "Alfa Baba" Farmingham
would be, then, one of the persons that Hargrave's house was
concerned to reach. He looked again at the card.
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