From his reflections, which were dimly like these, Kemper came back abruptly to his memory of Laura.  “Do you know,” he said, speaking to himself rather than to his companion, “that she really interests me very much indeed.”

“Well, she is interesting,” laughed Adams, “in spite of the fact that Perry finds her rather dull.  He complains that she doesn’t talk like a book, which is a trifle odd when you consider that he has never read one.”

“What I like about her is that she’s different,” said Kemper.  “She is, isn’t she?”

“Different from other people?  Yes, I dare say she is, but all the Wildes are that, you know.  She comes of an eccentric stock.  Did you ever happen to meet her aunt, Mrs. Payne?”

Kemper nodded as he leaned forward to make a division in the centre of the intervening carnations, “The old lady who looks like a chorus girl in her dotage?  Yes, I’ve had the pleasure and I found her decidedly better than she looked.  Her husband, by the way, is a great old chap, isn’t he?  He held the biggest share in iron last spring and I guess he has made a pretty figure.”

“He’s a philosopher who got into the stock market by mistake,” observed Adams.  “I believe he would have been perfectly happy if he could have owned a single farm, a cow or two and a pair of horses to his plough, but he’s condemned to bear the uncongenial weight of millions, and I hear that he has even to give his charities in secret.  I never look at him that I don’t think of Marcus Aurelius oppressed by the burden of the whole Roman Empire.”

Kemper was peeling a pear, which he had taken from a dish upon the table, and he laid down his knife for a moment to push aside his cup of coffee.

“Has he any children?” he asked abruptly.

“Two—­both sons and gay young birds, I’m told.”

“Then Miss Wilde will hardly come in for a share of the burden?”

“Hardly.  The sons will probably dissipate a good half of it before it reaches them.”

“It’s a pity,” said Kemper thoughtfully; and having finished his pear, he dipped his fingers in his finger bowl, moistened his short moustache, and turned to take a cigar from the little silver tray which Wilkins held before him.  “Do you know I can’t imagine a greater happiness than the quick accumulation of wealth,” he observed in his hearty voice.

Adams laughed aloud with a merriment that was almost boyish.  “Well, I dare say you come in for your part of it,” he returned, while he flicked the ashes from his cigar.

“I?” Kemper shook his head without a smile.  “Oh, I accumulate nothing except habits.  I make and I spend—­I win and I lose—­and on my word I’m no richer to-day than I was ten years ago.  I’ve made a fortune in a day,” he added regretfully, “to lose it in an hour.”