He narrowly watched her when he ventured to call and report the aftermath of the Hathorn failure. Her lack of interest in the downfall of the two whom she had fought in society and on the Street was entirely forced. She gloated over her victory. Her despondency, however, was real, for a vague sorrow shone in her eyes and the great rooms of the Circassia were no longer filled with that glittering throng which she had drawn away from Alida Hathorn’s Fifth Avenue drawing-rooms. “Did she ever love Hathorn?” was Vreeland’s self-torturing question. “And is her vengeance after all only Dead Sea fruit?” He secretly resented the calm, equable kindness of his patroness, for there was no answering glow within her splendid eyes, no quickening of her frozen pulses at his approach. “She has only used me as a human buffer, a switch to safely reach the other track, and I have worked under the espionage of the adroit Mary Kelly. I see her whole plan,” wrathfully decided Vreeland. “To break up her whole secret into disjointed links. To play us off, one against the other, and then perhaps to drop me, forever, as she dropped Hathorn, if I am ever caught napping. “She guards some momentous secret. Either of this hidden syndicate’s inside methods, or else the dangerous past life which blackens her present. How much of that did Hathorn know? “Not enough to hurt her. But, I will rule her by fear yet, for love is out of the game. Let me secretly tap her lines, and, then, _gare le corbeau_!” He had once timidly approached Mrs. Willoughby as to the immediate-future programme of the uptown “special bureau.” His patroness manifested but little interest and simply coldly said, “You will have ample leisure for society and your own affairs. Remain there silent, watchful, and always on duty, though. “The reincorporation in New Jersey, the coming division into common and preferred stock, and the court’s dubious actions may cause me to act strongly in simulated attack or defense, at any moment. And there’s always that veering Congress; its actions are inexplicably swayed under flex or reflex of the public mind, private manipulation or ‘advanced journalism.’” Vreeland chafed in his heart that there had been as yet no _rapprochement_ between himself and Senator Alynton. A slight cold disdain seemed to chill that magnate’s courtesy in all their brief _rencontres_. “He likes me not!” was the schemer’s just observation. And yet, he gravely held a uniform courtesy. A special delivery letter at last awoke Vreeland from his reverie, as he was furtively gazing at Miss Romaine Garland’s shapely head bowed over her machine, and then the tube’s whistle announced from below a call of “Mr. James Potter” on “the most important business.” The letter lay unopened as Vreeland wonderingly advanced to meet his unfrequent visitor.