“I have just fallen into a good bit of money by my father’s death, and so have come on here to enjoy myself. I may spend a couple of years abroad.” Vreeland then blessed that daring, familiar spirit which so saucily suggested his “cheeky” retort, as the man who had been his chum and fellow of several Greek letter societies stopped short. “Wait for me at the station, old fellow. We are bothered yet with some ladies. They leave at the station. Then we will dine later at the club and talk over old times a bit. You’ll come, too, won’t you, Potter?” Jimmy Potter carelessly nodded an assent from sheer laziness, and then the two members of the _jeunesse dorée_, passed on into the boudoir car. There was a twinkle of triumph in Vreeland’s eye as he sank back in his seat. “I got a dinner out of you at any rate, Mr. Snob,” he gleefully chuckled. And, highly elated, he decided then and there, to vary his first plan of drifting with the tide, and to cautiously put his oar in a bit where it would help him on. His step was as light as the tread of a panther when he leaped out of the car at Forty-second Street. “I’ll have a stolen glance at their women,” he quickly resolved. “Perhaps they may give dinners, too.” And just then, there seemed to be the twinkle of a little star of Hope lighting up that devious, unknown path which he was so soon to tread. “I’ll let him give me a Club card,” he mused, as the wearied passengers hurried along to brave the din of importunate jehus. He was wondering how much of a social show he could make at need with his slender fortune, when the two men slowly approached with three “shining ones” of the golden strata of womanly New York. “These people are all in the swim,” he murmured. “I will find the way! I am as good as any of them.” And as he raised his eyes, he met the glances of the imperial-looking woman who was Fred Hathorn’s companion. The lady’s eyes rested for a moment upon the handsome stranger, and then fell with a peculiar abruptness. “If that woman plays any star part in his life, I will try and take her away from him,” resolved Vreeland, whose whole soul was now thrilling with the beautiful woman’s sudden, startled admission of interest in a passing stranger. The wine of life stirred in the young wanderer’s veins. His audacious, familiar sprite suggested the profound bow which was Mr. Harold Vreeland’s first salutation upon the outskirts of the “Four Hundred.” He had adroitly managed to convey the respectful homage of the salutation by his velvety eyes to the very person intended, for, while Jimmy Potter was placidly listening to the brilliant chatter of two very vivacious rosebuds, Mrs. Elaine Willoughby turned to Hathorn: “Fred, who is your Western friend?” she asked, with an assumed carelessness. It was by sheer good luck that Hathorn, who was watching the young millionairess whom he was soon to marry, answered with an unusual warmth: