and most fruitful of the commonplaces. Nevertheless, it was not
immortal; and Winton was just beginning to cast about for some other
safe riding road for the shallop of small talk when Miss Carteret sent
it adrift with malice aforethought.

It was somewhere between the entrees and the fruit, and the point of
departure was Boston art.

"Speaking of art, Mr. Winton, will you tell me how you came to think
of sketching in the mountains of Colorado at this time of year? I
should think the cold would be positively prohibitive of anything like
that."

Winton stared--open-mouthed, it is to be feared.

"I--I beg your pardon," he stammered, with the inflection which takes
its pitch from blank bewilderment.

Miss Virginia was happy. Dilettante he might be, and an unhumbled man
of the world as well; but, to use the Reverend Billy's phrase, she
could make him "sit up."

"I beg yours, I'm sure," she said demurely. "I didn't know it was a
craft secret."

Winton looked across the aisle to the table where the Technologian was
sitting opposite a square-shouldered, ruddy-faced gentleman with fiery
eyes and fierce white mustaches, and shook a figurative fist.

"I'd like to know what Adams has been telling you," he said.