“I have been at Madame’s side since the first day when this egoist Hathorn first met her. There has been no love, no intrigue, no child. And he—the hard-hearted brute—schemed only for her money. “No! It is beyond me. Beyond my seven years of service. I will reach _la mystère_ yet for you,” she smiled. “And you will perhaps find that there was ze old divorce, ze old-time _scandale_. And the other man, the husband, has perhaps taken away the child. The sorrow, _yes_; the secret _d’amour, no! Elle est trop bravement bête pour l’amour à la mode._ “The journalist? Ah, no! _Il n’est qu’un brave ami! Pas plus!_” It was dark before the “rising star” dared to steal away from Justine’s little _pied à terre_, for too well Vreeland knew that the enraged Hathorn was shadowing his every movement. Justine had fled away, light-hearted, after the sealing of a pact which was to lead her to the splendors of _Dame du Comptoir_ of her own _cabaret_. And as Vreeland strolled homeward he summed up the situation. “Her only friend and confidant is Endicott. No thoroughfare there. Alberg, this German brute, knows nothing and Hathorn less than nothing, or he would have already used it against her in this bitter petticoat fight. “I will hoodwink them all. My time will come when I have gained her cherished secret. And if I do gain her secret, it will be on the market, to the highest bidder, perhaps to the dashing Alida Hathorn, or else be quietly nursed to later bring me in a fortune.” He was satisfied with his day’s work. The light was dawning now. When the adventurer reviewed the whole situation, he felt that the mystery was as yet hidden in Elaine Willoughby’s ardent bosom. “The day will come when she will need me, when she will tell me all, when she is safe to live a free woman’s heart-life. I will wait on her and give no one my confidence.” During the long, busy week before the Christmas holidays, Vreeland narrowly watched his strange, silent partner, Horton Wyman, to see if he were bidden to the Lakemere house party. “He is the only one that I have to fear,” mused Vreeland, “for, with Senator Alynton’s backing and his daily intercourse with old Endicott, I would be bowled out in a moment, if I made a single misstep. Can he yearn for Elaine Willoughby’s money?” In the daily office associations, the casual meetings at the Circassia, in the feebly maintained exchange of personal hospitalities, Horton Wyman had so far remained to him an unexplored country. Cool, sturdy, with piercing black eyes, and a marvelous self-control, with a facial mask which even a Jesuit might have envied, Horton Wyman was seemingly devoid of any passion but money-making. Vreeland had gained the general impression that he was “bookish,” and the silent partner avoided all show society.