Norman, without seeming to do so, noted the rest of the Burroughs party. At Josephine's right sat a handsome young foreigner, and it took small experience of the world to discover that he was paying court to her, and that she was pleased and flattered. Norman asked the waiter who he was, and learned that he came from the waiter's own province of France, was the Duc de Valdome. At first glance Norman had thought him distinguished. Afterward he discriminated. There are several kinds or degrees of distinction. There is distinction of race, of class, of family, of dress, of person. As Frenchman, as aristocrat, as a scion of the ancient family of Valdome, as a specimen of tailoring and valeting, Miss Burroughs's young man was distinguished. But in his own proper person he was rather insignificant. The others at the table were Americans. Following Miss Burroughs's cue, they sought an opportunity to speak friendlily to Norman--and he gave it them. His acknowledgment of those effusive salutations was polite but restrained. "They are friends of yours?" said Dorothy. "They were," said he. "And they may be again--when they are friends of _ours_." "I'm not very good at making friends," she warned him. "I don't like many people." This time her unconscious and profound egotism pleased him. Evidently it did not occur to her that she should be eager to be friends with those people on any terms, that the only question was whether they would receive her. She asked: "Why was Miss--Miss Burroughs so friendly?" "Why shouldn't she be?" "But I thought you threw her over." He winced at this crude way of putting it. "On the contrary, she threw me over." Dorothy laughed incredulously. "I know better. Mr. Tetlow told me." "She threw me over," repeated he coldly. "Tetlow was repeating malicious and ignorant gossip." Dorothy laughed again--it was her second glass of champagne. "You say that because it's the honorable thing to say. But I know." "I say it because it's true," said he. He spoke quietly, but if she had drunk many more than two glasses of an unaccustomed and heady liquor she would have felt his intonation. She paled and shrank and her slim white fingers fluttered nervously at the collar of her dress. "I was only joking," she murmured. He laughed good-naturedly. "Don't look as if I had given you a whipping," said he. "Surely you're not afraid of me." She glanced shyly at him, a smile dancing in her eyes and upon her lips. "Yes," she said. And after a pause she added: "I didn't used to be. But that was because I didn't know you--or much of anything." The smile irradiated her whole face. "You used to be afraid of me. But you aren't, any more." "No," said he, looking straight at her. "No, I'm not." "I always told you you were mistaken in what you thought of me. I really don't amount to much. A man as serious and as important as you are couldn't--couldn't care about me."