“So, go and make yourself Benedick, the married man. It is the time of roses—you must pluck them as you pass. Come to me—when you have settled this matter. I will give you a social send-off at Lakemere worthy of ‘the high contracting parties.’” Her voice was thrilling him now as of old, and yet, with all her kindness, he instinctively felt that something was going out of his life forever. “It will be always the same between us, Elaine,” the young Napoleon murmured. She had risen and turned toward the door. “Did you ever know me to change?” she softly said, as she glided out to begin a cordial _tête-à-tête_ with Vreeland. There was no further intimate exchange of thoughts possible between the secretly estranged couple, and, now keenly on guard, in a disturbed state of mind, Mr. Frederick Hathorn lingered in converse late that night at the Old York Club, with his quondam friend. Harold Vreeland’s conduct at his debut had been perfectly adapted to Elaine Willoughby’s changeful mood. The deep courtesy of a perfect self-effacement, and his coldly-designed waiting policy soothed her strangely restless heart. The woman who once could have married Hathorn was now feverishly eager to see him haled to the bar of matrimony. “Once that he is _rangé_—I am then sure of myself again,” she murmured, as she saw her perfectly composed face for the last time that night in the silver-framed mirror. And yet, she knew that it was but a social mask. There was an anticipatory revenge, however, in the fact that Hiram Endicott had reported the private pooling of her enormous Sugar holdings with those of the great chief of the vast Syndicate. The ten per cent bonus dividend, long artfully held back, was her assured profit now, and Hugh Conyers’ watchful loyalty had made “assurance doubly sure.” Endicott had already sent out a dozen agents to take up once more the secret quest which had so often failed them—and these “legal affairs” naturally gave him the excuse for a tri-weekly visit to Lakemere. “So, Mr. Frederick Hathorn, as you have locked the door of my heart on the outside, you may now throw away the useless key!” she mused “I will find my best defense against any weakness in the keen-witted young wife who will surely show you yet the thorns on the rosebud.” Dreams of the past mingled with the shapes of the present, as the lady of Lakemere laid her shapely head to rest. “He has irreproachable manners, at least,” was her last thought, as the unconscious psychology of mighty Nature brought the graceful Vreeland back to her mind. “I wonder if he is at heart like—the other?” And so, all ignorant of the power of this self-confessed womanly yearning toward the handsome young stranger, Elaine Willoughby fell asleep, to dream of the crafty man who had not yet forgotten how her liquid eyes had dropped under his ardent gaze.