So he felt when he was approaching twenty-six. The effect of Christina Channing's friendship for him was particularly to emphasize this. She was not so much older than he, was possessed of very much the same temperament, the same hopes and aspirations, and she discerned almost as clearly as he did the current of events. New York was to witness a golden age of luxury. It was already passing into it. Those who rose to distinction in any field, particularly music or the stage, were likely to share in a most notable spectacle of luxury. Christina hoped to. She was sure she would. After a few conversations with Eugene she was inclined to feel that he would. He was so brilliant, so incisive. "You have such a way with you," she said the second time he came. "You are so commanding. You make me think you can do almost anything you want to." "Oh, no," he deprecated. "Not as bad as that. I have just as much trouble as anyone getting what I want." "Oh, but you will though. You have ideas." It did not take these two long to reach an understanding. They confided to each other their individual histories, with reservations, of course, at first. Christina told him of her musical history, beginning at Hagerstown, Maryland, and he went back to his earliest days in Alexandria. They discussed the differences in parental control to which they had been subject. He learned of her father's business, which was that of oyster farming, and confessed on his part to being the son of a sewing machine agent. They talked of small town influences, early illusions, the different things they had tried to do. She had sung in the local Methodist church, had once thought she would like to be a milliner, had fallen in the hands of a teacher who tried to get her to marry him and she had been on the verge of consenting. Something happened--she went away for the summer, or something of that sort, and changed her mind. After an evening at the theatre with her, a late supper one night and a third call, to spend a quiet evening in her room, he took her by the hand. She was standing by the piano and he was looking at her cheeks, her large inquiring eyes, her smooth rounded neck and chin. "You like me," he said suddenly a propos of nothing save the mutual attraction that was always running strong between them. Without hesitation she nodded her head, though the bright blood mounted to her neck and cheeks. "You are so lovely to me," he went on, "that words are of no value. I can paint you. Or you can sing me what you are, but mere words won't show it. I have been in love before, but never with anyone like you." "Are you in love?" she asked naively. "What is this?" he asked and slipped his arms about her, drawing her close. She turned her head away, leaving her rosy cheek near his lips. He kissed that, then her mouth and her neck. He held her chin and looked into her eyes. "Be careful," she said, "mamma may come in." "Hang mamma!" he laughed.