Wilfred nodded, and said, gravely: "I am waiting."

"In the first place, you are one of those men whose fortunes are
listed in the top schedule--the swollen fortunes. Socialists would put
you in the predatory class."

"Drennie," he groaned, "do you keep your heaven locked behind a gate
of the Needle's Eye? It's not my fault that I'm rich. It was wished on
me. If you are serious, I'm willing to become poor as Job's turkey.
Show me the way to strip myself, and I'll stand shortly before you
begging alms."

"To what end?" she questioned. "Poverty would be quite inconvenient. I
shouldn't care for it. But hasn't it ever occurred to you that the man
who wears the strongest and brightest mail, and who by his own
confession is possessed of an alert brain, ought occasionally to be
seen in the lists?"

"In short, your charge is that I am a shirker--and, since it's the
same thing, a coward?"

Adrienne did not at once answer him, but she straightened out for an
uninterrupted run before the wind, and by the tiny moss-green flecks,
which moments of great seriousness brought to the depths of her eyes,
he knew that she meant to speak the unveiled truth.

"Besides your own holdings in a lot of railways and things, you handle
your mother's and sisters' property, don't you?"