"Just because you are bored to death," Dalton told her, "is no reason
why you should accuse me of it."

"It isn't accusation. It's condolence. I am sorry for both of us,
George, that we can't sit there under the trees and eat out of a basket
and have spiders and ants in things and not mind it. Here we are in
the land of Smithfield hams and spoon-bread and we ate canned lobster
for lunch, and alligator pear salad."

"Baked ham and spoon-bread--for our sins?"

"It is because you and I have missed the baked ham and spoon-bread
atmosphere, that we are bored to death, Georgie. Everything in our
lives is the same wherever we go. When we are in Virginia we ought to
do as the Virginians do, and instead Oscar Waterman brings a little old
New York with him. It's Rome for the Romans, Georgie, lobsters in New
England, avocados in Log Angeles, hog and hominy here."

There were others listening now, and she was aware of her amused
audience.

"If you don't like my little old New York," Waterman said, "I'll change
it."

"No, I am going back to the real thing, Oscar. To my sky-scrapers and
subways. You can't give us those down here--not yet. Perhaps some day
there will be a system of camouflage by which no matter where we
are--in desert or mountain, we can open our windows to the Woolworth
Building on the skyline or the Metropolitan Tower, or to Diana shooting