"_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."