"'I don't like having kept you waiting,' he says to Insley. 'I'm just in. By Jove, I've left Topping's letter somewhere--Insley, is it? thank you. Of course. Well, Calliope, blessings! I knew I could count on you. How are you--you look it. No, don't run away. Keep straight on--Mr. Insley will pardon us getting settled under his nose. Now what can I get you, Mr. Insley? If you've walked up, you're warm. No? As you will. It's mighty jolly getting back--for a minute, you know. I couldn't stop here. How the devil do you stop here all the time--or do you stop here all the time?...' All this he poured out in a breath. He always had talked fast, but now I see that he talked more than fast--he talked foreign. "'I'm here some of the time,' says Insley; 'I hoped that you were going to be, too.' "'I?' Alex said. 'Oh, no--no. I feel like this: while I'm in the world, I want it at its best. I want it at its latest moment. I want to be living _now_. Friendship Village--why, man, it's living half a century ago--anyway, a quarter. It doesn't know about A.D. nineteen-anything. I love the town, you know, for what it is. But confound it, I'm living _now_.' "Insley leaned forward. I was dusting away on an encyclopædia, but I see his face and I knew what it meant. This was just what he'd been hoping for. Alex Proudfit was a man who understood that the village hadn't caught up. So he would want to help it--naturally he would. "'I'm amazed at the point of view,' Alex went on. 'I never saw such self-sufficiency as the little towns have. In England, on the continent, the villages know their place and keep it, look up to the towns and all that--play the peasant, as they are. Know their betters. Here? Bless you. Not a man down town here but will tell you that the village has got everything that is admirable. They believe it, too. Electric light, water, main street paved, cemetery kept up, "nice residences," telephones, library open two nights a week, fresh lettuce all winter--fine, up-to-date little place! And, Lord, but it's a back-water. With all its improvements the whole _idea_ of modern life somehow escapes it--music and art, drama, letters, manners, as integral parts of everyday living--what does it know of them? It thinks these things are luxuries, outside the scheme of real life, like monoplanes. Jove, it's delicious!' "He leaned back, laughing. Insley must have felt his charm. Alex always was fascinating. His eyes were gray and sort of hobnobbed with your own; his square chin just kind of threatened a dimple without breaking into one; his dark hair done clusters like a statue; and then there was a lot of just plain charm pouring off him. But of course more than with this, Insley was filled with his own hope: if Alex Proudfit understood some things about the village that ought to be made right, it looked to him as though they might do everything together.