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.
It was easy to see that the “butterfly” of fashion was gravely impressed. It was none of the Dickie Doubleday’s crumpled rose leaves which had brought the pale-faced man to the luxurious sky parlors of the “Elmleaf.” His merry face was soberly overshadowed.
With little formality, Jimmy Potter closed the door into the rooms where the two women were engaged, and, not without a glance of impelled admiration at the statuesque stenographer, broke into a confidence which astounded Vreeland.
“Hear me out first, Vreeland,” he soberly said, “and then help me if you can. I’m off on the steamer for Havre to-morrow. To join Hathorn’s widow.”
Vreeland started, but Potter’s outstretched arm kept him in his chair.
“Poor Fred was drowned two days ago by the upsetting of a boat at Cienfuegos. The fact is, the Cuban authorities were after him, and so, he cleared out of Havana.”
“I’ve sent a good man down there to do all that may be done, in a decent respect for his past. Mrs. Hathorn has just cabled for me. I have had a long letter from her.
“Some damned traitor deliberately gave her the dead cross on the ‘Sugar Deal.’ She was trying to get Fred out of the Street. And so, she plunged on fifty thousand shares of Sugar on this lying tip, came out short, and has to pay, as Hathorn shoved all their customers’ money in to hold over his own huge, private gamble until the market broke down to forty. It’s up to seventy-eight and there to stay. Now, she wishes to make restitution to the men whom the firm robbed. And I have to help her settle her own private losses.”