“He is a new face, and she may forget to harry Alida in the new man’s initiation at Lakemere. And I’ll go up and see her this afternoon myself.” When he had telephoned his carefully-worded message to Justine, to be delivered to Mrs. Willoughby on her return, he ordered a basket of orchids to precede his call at the Circassia, and then, with a fine after-thought, telegraphed “Mr. Harold Vreeland, Hotel Waldorf,” to await his call on important business after dinner. “If I am going to use Vreeland, I may as well put him into play right now,” cheerfully mused Hathorn, as he lit a Prince of Wales cigarette. “I can pay that devil Justine a bit extra to watch Hod Vreeland’s little game with Elaine. “A bit of healthy flirtation may cause her to forget Alida shining her down. “Whirlwind speculator as she is, the Willoughby is one of Eve’s family, after all. ‘But yet a woman!’ I wonder if—” His reverie was cut off by the entrance of Mr. Jimmy Potter, who calmly remarked: “Sugar is going hellward! You had better get out and see about where we will land!” Mr. Fred Hathorn had unwittingly passed one of the cross-roads of life and a knowledge of his proposed actions would have been Balm of Gilead to the anxious soul of Harold Vreeland, who was busily engaged with the great tailor, Bell—manufacturer of gentlemen _à la mode_. The crafty Vreeland’s heart would have bounded had he realized how true was the debonnair Jimmy Potter’s one golden maxim. “Hold on quietly, and what you want will come around to you!” The arched doors of the Circassia, the superb gateways of Lakemere were being slowly swung for him, by the scheming man who cunningly proposed to divert the Montana bonanza into the coffers of Hathorn and Potter. Mr. Potter, in his pink-eyed awakening from a night’s folly, was now standing at the bar of the Savarin, gloomily reflecting upon certain rashnesses of his own on the preceding evening. These little extravaganzas, greatly to the profit and delight of Miss Dickie Doubleday, had been all unsolicited by that sinewy-hearted young beauty. “The biggest fool in the world is the man who fools himself!” sadly ejaculated Potter, as he shed his burden of care with the half dollar dropped for a “high ball.” He crept back to watch Fred Hathorn battling in the Sugar pit, with all the admiration of a fainéant for an energetic man. “Great fellow, Fred!” proudly reflected Mr. Jimmy, with one last wormwood pang for the robbery of that young Diana, Alida VanSittart. “She outclasses him—ranks him—clean out of sight!” sadly mourned Potter. “Now, if I was only clear of the Doubleday, I might—” But, an aching head cut short his half-formed determination. “I suppose that she is like all the others!” sighed Potter. “These New York girls’ hearts are like a ball of string, unwind the thing—and—there’s nothing left!”