With a wave of her slender hand she swept away the flood of easy lies that were trembling on his lips, and then, her bright eyes, deep and searching, seemed to delve into his very soul. “Remember, you need not answer, if you don’t care to; but you must give me the right to feel that you are a gentleman. My husband’s enemies _may_ or _may not_ be mine!” She burned a Parthian glance into his trembling heart. “Why did you conceal from him that you were going into banking, and let him go on and parade you as his best friend, and all that?” she curtly demanded. “Mrs. Hathorn,” earnestly pleaded the accomplished liar, “another man had my promise of partnership long before I left Montana. He was already making arrangements as to offices and several confidential matters on which our firm’s future depended. “I was only asked to give your husband an answer on October 1st. “And I did give one early enough—a friendly declination—which your husband made me repeat too forcibly. You should not blame me for our little estrangement.” “And you did not scheme to supplant him with—with—” “One word, Madame,” meaningly said Vreeland. “I have opened my heart to you. _Noblesse oblige!_ Your question was one I could honorably answer, just as I could _not_ honorably forewarn men whom fate had made our business rivals. “Remember, all’s fair in love, stocks, and war. And it’s every man for himself in New York.” “And every woman, too,” added Mrs. Alida, with a little snaky smile. “I always liked you,” she hesitatingly said, and then, her eyes dropped before the ardent and merciless gaze of a man who now saw “a new way to pay old debts.” “Then let me volunteer a hint that I have never supplanted your husband with anyone nor sought to. My capital alone gives me weight in our firm. I have never even opened a ledger or made an individual transaction. “Pride and old comradeship should temper each other in your husband. I have only avoided the distressing embarrassments which he alone has brought upon himself, and you will always find me your secret friend, though I can not seek you out in this witches’ parade of Gotham. You know all the reasons why I can not range myself openly at your side.” His devilish familiar was now whispering in his ear. The victim was young, fair, and foolish. The luxurious woman sighed. All her allures had been baffled. “_If I should need to tax your friendship?_” she slowly said, her breathing quick and fierce, telling of her agitation. It was now Vreeland’s eyes which “burned into her spirit’s core.” “Yes; if you make the place where we can meet without a foolish risk and placing us both in a false position.” He glanced around the debatable ground of the Turkish room. Any notable, from Chauncey Depew down to the last “Western bonanza beauty,” might surprise them there at any moment. “Will you come, if you need me?” he whispered, taking her hand, with insidious suggestion.