"If I can't fully agree with you, I can at least admire your point of
view," she said amiably. "Is it Western--or merely human?"

He laughed.

"Shall we assume that the one implies the other? That would be in
accordance with your point of view, wouldn't it?"

"Yes; but it would be a distinct reversal of yours. Truth belongs to
another and simpler time than ours. We are conventional first and
everything else afterward."

"Are we?" he queried. "Some few hundreds or thousands of us may be; but
for the remainder of our eighty-odd millions the conventions are things
to be put on and off like Sunday garments. And even the chosen few of
us brush them aside upon occasion; ignore them utterly, as we two are
ignoring them at this moment."

She proved his assertion by continuing to talk to him, and the
dining-car was emptying itself when they realized that there is an end
even to a most leisurely dinner. Ford paid the steward as they left the
car, but in the Pullman he went back to first principles and insisted
upon some kind of a definite accounting for the lost purse.

"Now you will tell me now much I threw away for you, and I'll pay my
debt," he said, when she had hospitably made room for him in the
opposing seat of her section.

"Indeed, you will do nothing of the kind!" she asserted. "You will give
me your card--we're going back to the conventions now--and when we reach