When he started for the house he had entered on a new phase in his relation to her. He was no longer the humble visitor, overawed by her riches, but someone whose business it was to watch over and take care of her. It bridged the gulf between them, swept away artificial distinctions. He forgot himself, his awkwardness, how he impressed her. These once important considerations ceased to exist and a man, concerned about a woman, feeling his obligations to look after her, emerged from the hobbledehoy that had once been Marquis de Lafayette Barrage. She saw the change at the first glance. It was in his face, in his manner, no longer diffident, assured, almost commanding. Their positions were transformed, she less a fine lady, queening it amid the evidences of her wealth, than a girl, lonely and uncared for, he the dominating, masculine presence that her life had lacked. The woman in her, slowly unfolding in secret potency, felt his ascendancy and bloomed into fuller being. They were conscious of the constraint and shyness that had been between them giving place to a gracious ease, of having suddenly experienced a harmonious adjustment that had come about without effort or intention. Over the smooth, sweet sense of it they talked on indifferent matter, items of local importance, small social doings, the Metropolitan Opera Company which was to open its season on the following Monday night. It was wonderful how interesting everything was, how they passed from subject to subject. They had so much to say that the shadows were rising in the distant end of the room before Mark came to the real matter of moment. It was proof of the change in him that he did not grope and blunder to it but brought it forward with one abrupt question. "Who is Mr. Mayer that I met here the other night?" "Well--he's just Mr. Mayer--a man from the East who's in California for his health. That's all I know about him, except that he lived a long time in Europe when he was a boy and a young man." "How did you come to meet him?" "Through Mrs. Kirkham, an old friend of Mother's. She brought him here and then we asked him to dinner." She paused, but the young man, his eyes on the ground, making no comment, she concluded with, "Did you think he was interesting?" He raised his glance to hers and said: "No--I didn't like him." Lorry leaned from her chair, her eyebrows lifted, her expression mischievously confidential. "Then we have one taste in common--neither do I." She was surprised to see Mark flush, and his gaze widen to a piercing fixity. She thought her plain speaking had offended him and hastened to excuse it: "I know that isn't a nice thing to say about a guest in your house, and I don't say it to everybody--only to you. Are you shocked?" "No, I'm relieved. But I couldn't think you would like him." "Why? All the other girls do." "You're not like the other girls. You're--" He stopped abruptly, again dropped his eyes and said, "He's no good--he's a fake."