She was his enemy, though she smiled upon him with a dazzling fascination calculated to turn cooler heads than his. But, at any rate, she had not asked him here to poison him at her own table. Mrs. Mona May was too fine an artist for that. Presently Geoffrey came out of his dream to find himself talking. Mrs. May seemed to be putting all the questions and he was giving all the answers. And yet, directly, she asked no questions at all. She was sympathetic and interested in the family, as she explained with kindness and feeling. "And there is that poor blind gentleman," she said sweetly. Her eyes were bent over her dessert plate. She was peeling a peach daintily. There was just for the fraction of a second a ring in her voice that acted on Geoffrey as a cold douche does to a man whose senses are blurred with liquor. Some instinct told him that they were approaching the crux of the interview. "My uncle Ralph," he said carelessly. "He is a mystery. He keeps himself to himself and says nothing to anybody. Sometimes I fancy he is a clever man, who despises us, and at other times I regard him as a man whose misfortunes have dulled his brain and that he strives to conceal the fact." Mrs. May smiled. But she returned to the charge again. But strive as she would, she could get no more on this head out of Geoffrey. She wanted to know who the man was and all about him. And she learned nothing beyond the fact that he was a poor nonentity, despised by his relations. Geoffrey's open sincerity puzzled her. Perhaps there was nothing to learn after all. "Strange that he did not stay away," she murmured, "knowing that the family curse must overtake him." Geoffrey shrugged his shoulders carelessly. "What can an unfortunate like that have to live for?" he asked. "He is broken in mind and in body and has no money of his own. It is just like the old fox who crawls to the hole to die. And we are getting used to the curse by this time." "You have no hope, no expectation of the truth coming to light?" It was on the tip of Geoffrey's tongue to speak freely of his hopes for the future. Instead he bent his head over the table, saying nothing till he felt he had full control of his voice once more. Then he spoke in the same hopeless tones. "I have become a fatalist," he said. "Please change the subject." Mrs. May did so discreetly and easily. And yet in a few moments the doings of the Ravenspurs were on her tongue again and, almost unconsciously, Geoffrey found himself talking about Marion, Mrs. May listening quietly. "I have seen the young lady," she said. "She has a nice face." "Marion is an angel," Geoffrey cried. "Her face is perfect. You have only to look at her to see what she is. Nobody with a countenance like that could do wrong, even if she wished it. No matter who and what it is everybody comes under Marion's sway. Men, women, children, dogs, all turn to her with the same implicit confidence."