not looked at him, but at the cropping deer as
she spoke, but at her next sentence she turned to him again.

"Where should you begin?" she asked, and in saying it thought of
Stornham.

He laughed shortly.

"That is American enough," he said. "Your people have not finished their
beginnings yet and live in the spirit of them. I tell you of a wild
fancy, and you accept it as a possibility and turn on me with, 'Where
should you begin?'"

"That is one way of beginning," said Bettina. "In fact, it is the only
way."

He did not tell her that he liked that, but he knew that he did like it
and that her mere words touched him like a spur. It was, of course, her
lifelong breathing of the atmosphere of millions which made for this
fashion of moving at once in the direction of obstacles presenting to
the rest of the world barriers seemingly insurmountable. And yet there
was something else in it, some quality of nature which did not alone
suggest the omnipotence of wealth, but another thing which might be even
stronger and therefore carried conviction. He who had raged and clenched
his hands in the face of his knowledge of the aspect his dream would
have presented if he had revealed it to the ordinary practical mind,
felt that a point of view like this was good for him. There was in it
stimulus for a fleeting moment at least.

"That is a good idea," he answered. "Where should you begin?"

She replied quite seriously, though he could have imagined some girls
rather simpering over the question as a casual joke.

"One would begin at the fences," she said. "Don't you think so?"

"That is practical."

"That is where I shall begin at Stornham," reflectively.

"You are going to begin at Stornham?"

"How could one help it? It is not as large or as splendid as this has
been, but it is like it in a way. And it will belong to my sister's son.
No, I could not help it."

"I suppose you could not." There was a hint of wholly unconscious
resentment in his tone. He was thinking that the effect produced by
their boundless wealth was to make these people feel as a race of giants
might--even their women unknowingly revealed it.

"No, I could not," was her reply. "I suppose I am on the whole a sort
of commercial working person. I have no doubt it is commercial, that
instinct which makes one resent seeing things lose their value."

"Shall you begin it for that reason?"

"Partly for that one--partly for another." She held out her hand