The small controversy was closed by the appearance of its subject. As he stood looking in on them from the doorway--the master of the house--he was photographed on Dolores’ memory. Clean-cut against the vista of the dim-lit foyer in his evening black and white, his hands depending stiffly, his head side-set, he suggested controlled power. From his first surprised glance at herself, she appreciated that he had been unprepared for the presence of the governess. But his wife’s expectant eyes also were upon her. Licensed by the fact that she had not seen him in a couple of days, Dolores offered him her hand in greeting and looked up into his face when he stooped to touch for the briefest of moments her finger-tips. Yesterday she would have veiled her admiration. To-night she had a prescribed part to play. She could not help regretting the overture, however, when she saw his smile recede; realized that he had turned, without a word, away from her. A pressure hurt her throat. But she cheered at Catherine’s encouraging nod. Remembering those in-caving bricks of his down-town “Wall,” she forgave the forbidding attitude of one said to be so just. When dinner was announced, she obeyed Catherine’s signal that she take the arm of the host. On their stroll through the great hall toward the dining-room, she found occasion to thank him for the latest Cabot gift. “The dress--that I gave you?” His tone was mildly exclamatory. “You and Mrs. Cabot.” “So I gave you that dress?” he asked more easily. “Of course we _are_ getting on toward Christmas. Then I am prepared for little surprises like this--have to go around, you know, asking everybody what I gave them. I wonder _why_--the dress?” She tried not to show how disconcerted she felt. “Mrs. Cabot said it was because I get along so well with Jack, although that’s nothing to reward me so beautifully for. Getting on with Jack is its own reward.” “To be sure,” he murmured, as though his memory had been jogged. “To be sure,” he repeated, his eyes upon the velvet V of his wife’s back. “No matter why you made the gift, Mr. Cabot, it is an event in my life. To-night is the first time I’ve ever been in evening dress.” At last he looked down at her and interestedly. Dolores felt both pleased and abashed. Never, she realized, had she worn anything so becoming as this gown. Its delicate gray increased, rather than shamed the pallor and texture of her skin. Its rose seemed dimly to reflect the red of her lips, its mauve the deep purple of her eyes. Her hair, done low on her neck to hide as much as possible of the gleaming flesh which had not before been exposed to the eyes of man, made an oval, ebony frame for her face. “Never having been a girl myself, I don’t suppose I realize just what the first one means: Really, I didn’t suppose I had such good taste.” With which ambiguous comment he withdrew both eyes and interest. Evidently the subject of herself was dismissed.