"Ready! Go on with the examination. Well! what are you thinking?" "I am trying to see the whole scheme," he said, looking at her seriously. "Sassoon, Blood,--twenty others, I understand,--excitement and all that. How long have you been in it?" "In what?" "In this maelstrom of New York?" "Two years, almost!" "Ah, then there must be a man or two behind the rocks!" "How funnily you express things," she said, half guessing his meaning. "Just what do you mean?" He took out his cigarette-case, asked permission with a nod, and lighting a match, said: "The man behind the rock? Oh, that's obvious! The man you have only to whistle for, the passably acceptable man, safe, eligible, marriageable. The man who will come forward at any time! Every woman understands that. Perhaps there are several rocks, way back in the background? No fibbing, now!" She laughed, and thinking of Peavey, blushed under his quick gaze. "Yes, of course." "More than one?" "Three or four; but I shall never whistle!" "That's what makes the game so exhilarating, isn't it?" "Naturally! There's always a retreat," she said, nodding. His way of taking her, unexpected and positive, made her forget, at times, the combat intended, in the delight of self-analyzation. "Your eyes are extraordinary," he said, meeting her glance critically. "They're not eyes; they're blue clouds entangled in your eyelashes." But even in this there was no personal enthusiasm. He spoke enthusiastically, but as an observer, calculating and foreseeing developments. This compliment infuriated Doré. She was not accustomed to having men meet her full glance with nothing but criticism. "Thank you!" she said icily. "You compliment like an oculist." "No oculist would understand the value of such eyes," he answered calmly; "De Joncy was right when he said there was a million in each." "So you overheard?" "And you--did you understand?" "Of course!" She sprang to the floor, and went to the dressing-table on the pretext of seeking a comb. "I don't like the way you talk to me," she said, with her back to him. "Why?" The real reason she could not avow--that she resented this immovable impersonality of his attitude. This man, who saw into her, who divined so much that she believed securely masked, and yet showed no trace of emotion even in his flattery, began to irritate her, as well as to arouse all the dangerous vanities. But, as she could not tell him this, she assumed an indignant manner and said: "I believe you really think I shall turn into an adventuress!" "No-o," he said slowly, as if reflecting. "You may come near it--very near it; but it will be a hazard of the imagination. You will end very differently!" "Ah, yes," she said, suddenly remembering, her irritation yielding to her curiosity, "you were going to prophesy. Well, what's going to happen to me?" "You will be angry if I tell you," he said, with a whimsical pursing of his lips. "No! What?"