He had already resolved that he would also try to make a “run in” at Lakemere, if the cards came his way. “I could always give Fred ten points at billiards and twenty with the women, and then do him every time,” mused Vreeland. “He only plays a sure-thing game.” Vreeland’s own motto had always been “_De l’audace! Toujours de l’audace!_” and in fact, the root of his quarrel with his own cowardly father had been the sniveling, self-deprecatory caution of that “Old-man-afraid-of-his-record.” The little dinner was “_très-soigné_,” for Mr. Fred Hathorn did everything “decently and in order,” and it calmly proceeded to the gastronomic delight of a pleasure-loving man who had long nibbled at jerked elk and biscuits _à la_ Mike Muldoon. The wines, with their soft suggestion and insinuating succession, soon led them up to the point where Fred felt that he “had his man about right.” The shame-faced Potter, with his mandatory billets from “She,” burning under his waistcoat, soon mumbled several iron-clad excuses of unnecessary mendacity about “seeing a man,” and then gladly escaped, hustling himself into the hack with all the fond expectancy of a man who bought quite unnecessary diamond necklaces loyally and cheerfully for that queen of bright eyes, Miss Dickie Doubleday of the Casino. When the old college comrades were left alone, even the shaven servitor having fled, over the cigars of the incomparable Bock & Co., the two young men drifted into a considerable _rapprochement_. The old friendly days came back. Château Yquem, Pontèt Canet, fine Burgundy, and Pommery Sec have often mended many a torn thread in the web of friendship, as well as patched up the little rift in the Lute of Love. Your sweet devil-born spirit of champagne always stands smiling at the crossroads of life. “And, both reviewed the olden past— Full many a friend, in battle slain, And all the war that each had known, Rose o’er them once again.” The dinner was a “howling success” from the varying points of view of each sly schemer and his would-be dupe. Hathorn smiled knowingly when Vreeland carelessly remarked that he was not familiar with the dry details of Montana investments. “I leave all that drudgery to my lawyers,” he airily remarked, with all the nerve of a Napoleon Ives. “I must try and work his account in our direction,” mused the ardent devotee of business, while Vreeland gracefully bowed his thanks, when Hathorn rejoined: “Mrs. Willoughby? Yes. A wonderful woman. Prettiest place at Irvington. She entertains a great deal. I’ll ask her if I may present you. She’s probably the heaviest operator on the Street of all our rich women.” It was long after midnight when the two chums separated. Their strange life orbits had intersected for the first time since they sang “Lauriger Horatius” together in an honest, youthful chorus.