Stanton's words contained the most plausible explanation of Ida's conduct that occurred to Van Berg. The episode in the stage had made them acquainted, and her preconceived prejudice and hostility had been so far removed as to permit a certain degree of social companionship, whose result would now seem only increased dislike and distaste. As he supposed she would express herself, "he was not of her style." Had she not spent the greater part of Sunday afternoon and evening with Sibley? What other conclusion was there save that he was "of her style," congenial both in thought and character! And yet he still refused to entertain the belief that she recognized in him more than a fashionable man of the world. If only as the result of the pique originating on the evening of the concert, Ida Mayhew had stood aloof from him, he could hope to remove this early prejudice by better acquaintance. But if fuller acquaintance increased her aversion, then he must believe that the defects in her character were radical, inwrought through the whole web and woof of her nature. He could not assume the "Sibley style" if he would, and would not if he could, were her beauty a hundred-fold greater, were that possible. He was fast coming to the conclusion, therefore, that he must abandon the project which had so fascinated him, and whose success had so strongly kindled his imagination. And yet he did so reluctantly, very regretfully, chafing as only the strong-willed do, when confronted and thwarted by that which is only apparently impossible, and which they still feel might and ought to be accomplished. "I feel as the old alchemists must have done," he often thought. "Here is a base metal. Why can I not transmute it into gold?" But as the conviction of his impotence grew upon him he felt something like resentment toward the one who had thwarted his purpose; and so it naturally happened that when they met again at the supper-table, his cool and indifferent manner corresponded with that of Miss Mayhew to a degree that gave her a deeper pain than she could understand. "Why should she care?" she asked herself a hundred times that evening. But the unpleasant truth hourly grew more plain to her that she did care. Stanton and her mother quietly ignored her "foolish pique," as they termed it. In truth the former was so preoccupied with Miss Burton, and with jealousy of his friend, that he had few thoughts for anything else. He admitted to himself that he had never before been so thoroughly fascinated and awakened; and it was in accordance with his pleasure-loving, self-indulgent nature to drift on this shining tide withersoever it might carry him. But with a growing feeling of disquietude he saw that Van Berg also was deeply interested in Miss Burton, and, what was worse, he thought he detected an answering interest on her part.