"Bryce will do anything to please me now, mother." In this way, Bryce Denning's desires were all arranged for him, and that evening Dora made her request.

Bryce heard it with a pronounced pout of his lips, but finally told Dora she was "irresistible," and as his time for pleasing her was nearly out, he would even call on the Englishman at her request.
"Mind!" he added, "I think he is as proud as Lucifer, and I may get nothing for my civility but the excuse of a previous engagement." But Bryce Denning expected much more than this, and he got all that he expected.

The young men had a common ground to meet on, and they quickly became as intimate as ever Frederick Mostyn permitted himself to be with a stranger.

Bryce could hardly help catching enthusiasm from Mostyn on the subject of New York, and he was able to show his new acquaintance phases of life in the marvelous city which were of the greatest interest to the inquisitive Yorkshire squire--Chinese theaters and opium dives; German, Italian, Spanish, Jewish, French cities sheltering themselves within the great arms of the great American city; queer restaurants, where he could eat of the national dishes of every civilized country under the sun; places of amusement, legal and illegal, and the vast under side of the evident life--all the uncared for toiling of the thousands who work through the midnight hours.

In these excursions the young men became in a way familiar, though neither of them ever told the other the real feelings of their hearts or the real aim of their lives.
The proposed dinner took place ten days after its suggestion.