“Not of common stock,” he murmured as he deftly trod along her path, with a veiled impatience. He was deep now in the last details of a plan which busied Justine Duprez, for the coming of the second Senator, the open splendors of the grand dinner party as elaborated by Justine warned him that if he would cut the secret channels so vital to his success, he must bring the janitor and postal carriers of the “Circassia” under control. Justine, checking his headlong impatience, only smiled her velvety smile and whispered, “Give me some money to hoodwink them a little. Wait only for a few days, and trust to me. Have I ever failed you?” When the “rising and successful man,” Mr. Harold Vreeland, dressed himself with unusual distinction for Mrs. Willoughby’s regal dinner party of twenty, there was all the happiness of a new-born hope in his heart. For he was nearly ready now “to move on the enemy’s works.” That experienced “broker in young womanly talent,” Miss Marble, had earned herself a pretty diamond lace pin, and “an authorization to proceed,” by her ingenious plan of drawing out “Miss Romaine Garland.” The experienced lady had smiled at all his first crude attempts. “You were too abrupt. There is the awkward fact before her eyes always, that you are her employer. She acts on the mere defensive. “The proprieties you surely know. Now, you are far too young and charming as a man,” she blushingly said, “to be a safe benefactor for this glowing-hearted girl with her sweet, tender eyes. “She is a rare beauty and frankly good, and untinged as yet with the fires of Babylon. I have some showy friends of some influence, and, as she trusts me blindly, I will ‘have warm-hearted civilities’ extended to her. “You will have her home address now, in return for my pretty pin. Never go there. You would ruin all. “But, sir, you shall be drawn in as a guest to our little friendly coteries. She must be led into our allied camp gradually. “You, by hazard, will appear as an old intimate, here and there, when her shyness is worn off and, on that friendly and neutral ground, you can soon warm the marble into life.” The Marble had a crafty and glowing heart. The sly woman smiled. “No lonely young woman can resist long-continued and unobtrusive kindness. It always disarms. Let me have the means to lead her along into little pleasures. Once the taste of the easy evening outing life comes upon her, then, bit by bit, she will be as wax in my hands. You can meet her, by chance, at the theatres or operas when out with me. I will have a little supper given at some friend’s home. We can drop off the friends one by one. I cling to her.