Pride kept Hiram Endicott still in the ranks of his profession, while the acquired taste of money-making filled up the long days darkened by the loss of wife and daughter. When Hathorn, replying to her summons with an anxious brow, entered the room where the beautiful architect of his fortunes awaited him, he found a strange serenity brooding upon her face. With a brief greeting, he plunged in _media res_. His report was quickly made. The unmoved listener quietly remarked, “Hold my account out of all future deals in Sugar. Do nothing whatever. I may go away for a few weeks. I do not care for this little flurry. I will stand out—and—the Judge will keep that line safe.” The quiet decision of Elaine Willoughby’s orders gave the quietus to the young man’s eager plans for a great coup. Watching her craftily from the corners of his eyes, he lightly turned to the proposed visit of that interesting Montana capitalist, Harold Vreeland. “Bring him to see me, by all means!” the Lady of Lakemere cordially said. “He seems to have caught a bit of the breeziness of the pines.” And then, when Hiram Endicott briskly entered, Mr. Frederick Hathorn fled away to the renewed struggles of the Exchange. The quondam “only broker” was, however, not deceived. He raced on through the excited street to cover the firm’s large line of the rapidly advancing stock, and reasoned quickly as he went. In his heart there was the conviction of a coming change in the generous heart which had been so long open to him. “Elaine is a deep one,” he wrathfully mused. “She is either flying too high for me to follow in this—or else, she is ‘moving in a mysterious way her wonders to perform.’” He knew her nature too well to question her explicit orders. The nerve of a duelist, the honor of a caballèro, the courage of a plumed knight—all these were her attributes, and he was not mad enough to doubt that she knew her own mind. The “moaning of the sea of change” oppressed him. “She has got out beyond me,” he grumbled, and then, with all the experience born of his social life “above board” and “under the rose,” he failed to remember any case wherein a loving woman had gone madly wild in approval of a man’s devotion to another daughter of Eve. “I was a fool to take Alida up there to Lakemere, and fret my best customer with the ‘billing and cooing’ act! It was a bad play—and—yet, the break had to come!” He swore a deep oath that he would, when married, hold Alida VanSittart well in hand, and still cling to the desirable business of the woman who had made his fortune. “Here’s Vreeland,” he hopefully planned. “Just the fellow! Ardent, young, an interesting devil, and, rich. He will help to fill up the measure of her lonely days—and, his game can never cross my own. “He’s a mighty presentable fellow, too, and I can perhaps strengthen my hold on her through him.”