"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 'industry colonel,' isn't he? He looks it."

The Bostonian avenged himself at Winton's expense for the unwelcome
interruption.

"So much for your woman's intuition," he laughed. "Speaking of idlers,
there is your man to the dotting of the 'i'; a dilettante raised to
the _nth_ power."

Miss Carteret's short upper lip curled in undisguised scorn.

"I like men who do things," she asserted with pointed emphasis;
whereupon the talk drifted eastward to Boston, and Winton was ignored
until Virginia, having exhausted the reminiscent vein, said, "You are