In Chapter 2, the narrator describes May's view of Marcher with a clever oxymoron that reveals the strange duality of his manic passivity:
It was always open to him to accuse her of seeing him but as the most harmless of maniacs, and this, in the long run—since it covered so much ground—was his easiest description of their friendship. He had a screw loose for her but she liked him in spite of it and was practically, against the rest of the world, his kind wise keeper[...]
The oxymoron here is "the most harmless of maniacs." Maniacs are generally regarded as unsociable people whose erratic behavior makes them dangerous to society. However, John Marcher's particular brand of mania resides entirely in his own mind. Therefore, he is not a danger to May or anyone else. In fact, his worries seem to attract her. She is the keeper of the memory of his fate, and when she reminds him of it at the party, the two become inseparable. May seems more than willing to bear the burden of his preoccupation with fate, which never deters her from their friendship. In fact, "she liked him in spite of it," and it brings them together because no one else in the world understands it.
