In ceasing to hope one also ceases to fear, and Graydon admitted to himself that he had never before felt the change in Madge so deeply. The weak, timid little girl he had once known now looked as if she could quietly face anything. The crowded room, the stare of strangers, were simply as if they were not; the approach of a thunder-gust in the sultry evening was unheeded; when a loud peal drowned her voice, she simply waited till she could be heard again, and then went on without a tremor in her tones, while all around her people were nervous, starting, and exclaiming. There was not the faintest suggestion of high tragedy in her manner. To a casual observer it was merely the somewhat proud and cold reserve of a lady in a public place, while under the eyes of a strange and miscellaneous assemblage. Graydon imagined that it might veil some resentment because he had been so remiss in his attentions. He could scarcely maintain this view, however, for she was as cordial to him as to any one, while at the same time giving the impression that he was scarcely in her thoughts at all. Mr. Muir was perplexed also, and watched her with furtive admiration. "If she cares for Graydon's neglect she's a superb actress," he thought. "Great Scott! what an idiot he is, that he cannot see the difference between this grand woman and yonder white-faced speculator! She actually quickens the blood in my veins to-night when she fixes her great black eyes on me." Graydon felt her power, but believed that there was nothing in it gentle or conciliatory toward himself. Probably her mood resulted from a proud consciousness of her beauty and the triumphs that awaited her. She had been young and gay heretofore with the other young people, but now that a number of mature men, like Arnault, had appeared upon the scene, she proposed to make a different impression. The embodiment of her ideal might be among them. "At any rate," he concluded, "she has the skill to make me feel that I have little place in either her imaginings or hopes, and that for all she cares I may capture Miss Wildmere as soon as I can. Both of us probably are so far beneath her ideals of womanhood and manhood that she can never be friendly to one and is fast losing her interest in the other. She has already virtually said, 'Our relations are accidental, and if you marry Stella Wildmere you need not hope that I shall accept her with open arms as inseparable from one of my best friends.' 'Best friend,' indeed! Even that amount of regard was a lingering sentiment of the past. Now that we have met again she realizes that we have grown to be comparative strangers, and that our tastes and interests lie apart."