Somerville tells us we are passing through the famous Golden
Belt,--whatever that may be,--and recommends an easy-chair and a
window. But I haven't seen anything but stubble-fields--dismally wet
stubble-fields at that. Won't you sit down and help me watch them go
by?"

Adams placed a chair for her and found one for himself.

"'Uncle Somerville'--am I to have the pleasure of meeting Mr.
Somerville Darrah?"

Miss Virginia's laugh was non-committal.

"_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 'industr