Mary went out to inform her mother that only Mr. Buckstone would dine with them. Dick Birch still enjoyed the view, and she returned to the parlor. “Is your friend dry, Mary?” asked Eugene, when she came back. “He is not my friend,” she replied, hastening to repudiate the implication. “I never saw him till he came off to the boat.” “Still he served you well enough to be your friend.” “I am very grateful to him for his kind intentions, though it would have been better for him, and better for me, if he had confined his attention to his sketch of The Great Bell.” “He is evidently a man of genius; and what is more, perhaps, to a lady, he is an exceedingly handsome man.” “He is certainly handsome, but that is saying very little for him.” “Not many ladies would grant as much.” “We have been friends for a long time, Mr. Hungerford,”--she generally called him Eugene,--“and you know me well enough to believe what I say.” “I know you set but a small value upon mere beauty; but Mr. Buckstone is more than handsome. He is an artist; he has an excellent reputation as a marine painter in the city.” Why did he persist in talking about Mr. Buckstone? “I suppose you will not remain in Poppleton now, Mr. Hungerford,” she continued, boldly changing the topic. “Why should I not?” “All the world knows that you are a _millionnaire_ now,” she added, with a languid smile, as though that were the knell of any hopes she might have cherished. “Would that change me?” “I think it has changed you,” she answered, with some spirit. “In what respect?” “You seem more distant and dignified than you used to be.” “Do I?” “You know we used to be excellent friends when we went to school together, and even while you were in college, and since your return.” “Are we not now?” he asked, with a look more earnest than any he had yet bestowed upon her, and beneath which a slight flush came to her cheeks. “I don’t think you are so cordial as you used to be.” “I am sure my friendship has suffered no diminution: on the contrary, I regard you with more--more respect than ever before.” Respect! what a word to use at such a time and in such a presence! He meant to say something warmer than this when he began, but the ghost of the three millions suddenly obtruded itself between him and her, and he made a botch of it. “Without being very sentimental, Mr. Hungerford, I cannot help setting a high value on these early friendships.” “So do I; and, Mary, I am sure we shall always be _friends_,” said he, cheerfully, and even earnestly; but he placed a mysterious emphasis upon the word “friends,” which seemed to imply that they could never be anything more than friends. “It would not be strange, Mr. Hungerford,”--she still persisted in calling him so, notwithstanding the example he set her in this respect,--“if you should forget some of the friends of your early years, in your altered circumstances.”