Kilmeny was going because he knew that he might easily outwear his welcome. He had punished Verinder, and that was enough. The miner had met too many like him not to know that the man belonged to the family of common or garden snob. No doubt he rolled in wealth made by his father. The fellow had studied carefully the shibboleths of the society with which he wished to be intimate and was probably letter-perfect. None the less, he was a bounder, a rank outsider tolerated only for his money. He might do for the husband of some penniless society girl, but he would never in the world be accepted by her as a friend or an equal. The thought of him stirred the gorge of the fisherman. Very likely the man might capture for a wife the slim dark girl with the quick eyes, or even her friend, Joyce, choicest flower in a garden of maidens. Nowadays money would do anything socially. "Cheekiest beggar I ever saw," fumed Verinder. "Don't see why you let the fellow stay, Miss Dwight." The girl's scornful eyes came round to meet his. She had never before known how cordially she disliked him. "Don't you?" She rose and walked quickly into the house. Verinder bit his mustache angrily. He had been cherishing a fiction that he was in love with Miss Dwight and more than once he had smarted beneath the lash of her contempt. Joyce sank gracefully into the easiest chair and flashed a dazzling smile at him. "Has Moya been _very_ unkind, Mr. Verinder?" He had joined the party a few days before at Chicago and this was the first sign of interest Miss Seldon had shown in him. Verinder was grateful. "Dashed if I understand Miss Dwight at all. She blows hot and cold," he confided in a burst of frankness. "That's just her way. We all have our moods, don't we? I mean we poor women. Don't all the poets credit us with inconstancy?" The least ripple of amusement at her sex swelled in her throat and died away. "Oh, by Jove, if that's all! I say, do you have moods too, Miss Joyce?" Her long thick lashes fluttered down to the cheeks. Was she embarrassed at his question? He felt a sudden lift of the heart, an access of newborn confidence. Dobyans Verinder had never dared to lift his hopes as high as the famous beauty Joyce Seldon. Now for the first time his vanity stirred. Somehow--quite unexpectedly to him--the bars between them were down. Was it possible that she had taken a fancy to him? His imagination soared. For a moment her deep pansy eyes rested in his. He felt a sudden intoxication of the senses. Almost with a swagger he drew up a chair and seated himself beside her. Already he was the conquering male in headlong pursuit. Nor was he disturbed by the least suspicion of having been filled with the sensations and the impulses that she had contrived.