But Hathorn never knew how eagerly Vreeland, at the Waldorf, his anxiety veiled by a thoughtful smile, watched the clock hands crawl around till seven. “That fool has but one chance left to ruin me forever—and—to block my little game!” restlessly reflected Vreeland. “If he only had the manly nerve to dash up to Lakemere and to throw himself there on Elaine’s generosity, he might be forgiven—even now. The swaying bosom of womanhood is always ripe for forgiveness. A woman is fondly weak to a man who calls up a lost love. And he has been all in all to her, in the past days. “She set him up on a high pedestal and fairly worshiped him. “Perhaps he felt like the Frenchman, that two women are necessary to every man—one whom he loves, and one who loves him.” But the telegraphed reports of his secret spies arriving every half hour, told the delighted Vreeland that Hathorn was still “at the office.” “Give me to-night, and just one telegram to reach the Madonna—then—I will have made that breach irrevocable!” gleefully cried Vreeland, as he was driven down to the Old York Club. The two men met in an apparent cordiality, and the Western man’s poker nerve stood by him, as he calmly enjoyed a dinner, at which Hathorn merely nibbled, with an ill-concealed restlessness. They exhausted all the usual banalities with regard to the well-beaten paths of the wedding tour, and Mr. Vreeland was graceful in all his perfunctory interest in the young Adam and Eve in their newly found Paradise. When the cigars and liqueurs brought them around to the “hard-pan” stage of the interview, and a guarded seclusion, with a slow constrained manner—Frederick Hathorn began to carefully interrogate the “devil whom he had let out of the bottle.” Vreeland keenly eyed the speaker through the blue-curling smoke of a Henry Clay, and, when Hathorn had reviewed all his past arguments as to the proposed business connection, he buried his head in his hands in deep thought. Hathorn had even offered to aid Vreeland with the capital to qualify him as a member of the projected firm of “Hathorn, Potter & Vreeland.” It was a clear “giveaway” of his temporizing fears of the coming war. “You see, you could swing Mrs. Willoughby’s account and give it your special attention,” concluded the man who had now shown every card in his hand. Hathorn noticed, with a growing uneasiness, that Vreeland had been very reticent. The “Montana capitalist” had grown pompously solemn. Suddenly his old college chum lifted his head, and frankly eyed the anxious banker. “Have you conferred with Mrs. Willoughby on this plan?” he said, curtly. It was pinning his dupe to the cross—this sly thrust. Hathorn stammered, as he reddened, “Why—no! I have left that all to you. I have not written her nor seen her, since the wedding dinner. The fact is—” and the alert man of the world was left strangely searching for words which seemed to die away on his lips. He dared not betray his wife’s orders.