ed for the day-long run in the Denver
sleeper, and the Limited was clanking out over the switches, he
brought the talk around with a carefully assumed air of lack-interest
to the party in the private car.
"She is a friend of yours, then?" he said, when Adams had taken the
baited hook open-eyed.
The Technologian modified the assumption.
"Not quite in your sense of the word, I fancy. I met her a number
of times at the houses of mutual friends in Boston. She was studying
at the Conservatory."
"But she isn't a Bostonian," said Winton confidently.
"Miss Virginia?--hardly. She is a Carteret of the Carterets;
Virginia-born-bred-and-named. Stunning girl, isn't she?"
"No," said Winton shortly, resenting the slang for no reason that
he could have set forth in words.
Adams lighted another of the scented villainies, and his clean-shaven
face wrinkled itself in a slow smile.
"Which means that she has winged you at sight,
I suppose, as she does
most men." Then he added calmly, "It's no go."
"What is 'no go'?"
Adams laughed unfeelingly, and puffed away at his cigarette.
"You remind me of the fable about the head-hiding ostrich. Didn't
I see you staring at her as if you were about to have a fit? But it
is just as I tell you: it's no go. She isn't the marrying kind. If
you knew her, she'd be nice to you till she got a good chance to flay
you alive--"
"Break it off!" growled Winton.
"Presently. As I was saying, she would miss the chance of marrying
the best man in the world for the sake of taking a rise out of him.
Moreover, she comes of old Cavalier stock with an English earldom
at the back of it, and she is inordinately proud of the fact; while
you--er--you've given me to understand that you are a man of the
people, haven't you?"
Winton nodded absently. It was one of his minor fads to ignore his
lineage, which ran decently back to-