“_Quien sabe_?” she queried, airing her one Westernism before she was fairly in the longitude of it. “Uncle Somerville is a law unto himself. He had a lot of telegrams and things at Kansas City, and he is locked in his den with Mr. Jastrow, dictating answers by the dozen, I suppose.” “Oh, these industry colonels!” said Adams. “Don't their toilings make you ache in sheer sympathy sometimes?” “No, indeed,” was the prompt rejoinder; “I envy them. It must be fine to have large things to do, and to be able to do them.” “Degenerate scion of a noble race!” jested Adams. “What ancient Carteret of them all would have compromised with the necessities by becoming a captain of industry?” “It wasn't their _metier_, or the _metier_ of their times,” said Miss Virginia with conviction. “They were sword-soldiers merely because that was the only way a strong man could conquer in those days. Now it is different, and a strong man fights quite as nobly in another field--and deserves quite as much honor.” “Think so? I don't agree with you--as to the fighting, I mean. I like to take things easy. A good club, a choice of decent theaters, the society of a few charming young women like--” She broke him with a mocking laugh. “You were born a good many centuries too late, Mr. Adams; you would have fitted so beautifully, into decadent Rome.” “No--thanks. Twentieth-century America, with the commercial frenzy taken out of it, is good enough for me. I was telling Winton a little while ago--” “Your friend of the Kansas City station platform?” she interrupted. “Mightn't you introduce us a little less informally?” “Beg pardon, I'm sure--yours and Jack's: Mr. John Winton, of New York and the world at large, familiarly known to his intimates--and they are precious few--as 'Jack W.' As I was about to say--” But she seemed to find a malicious satisfaction in breaking in upon him. “'Mr. John Winton': it's a pretty name as names go, but it isn't as strong as he is. He is an 'industry colonel,' isn't he? He looks it.” The Bostonian avenged himself at Winton's expense for the unwelcome interruption. “So much for your woman's intuition,” he laughed. “Speaking of idlers, there is your man to the dotting of the 'i'; a dilettante raised to the _nth_ power.” Miss Carteret's short upper lip curled in undisguised scorn. “I like men who do things,” she asserted with pointed emphasis; whereupon the talk drifted eastward to Boston, and Winton was ignored until Virginia, having exhausted the reminiscent vein, said, “You are going on through to Denver?” “To Denver and beyond,” was the reply. “Winton has a notion of hibernating in the mountains--fancy it; in the dead of winter!--and he has persuaded me to go along. He sketches a little, you know.” “Oh, so he is an artist?” said Virginia, with interest newly aroused.