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.
Mr. Harold Vreeland now felt intuitively that his “bluff” was a good one. He had always battled skillfully enough in the preliminary skirmishes of his conflict with the world, but he felt that the scene of action had been poorly chosen.
Hard-hearted and pitiless, he cursed the memory of his corrupt and inefficient father, as he directed his lonely steps to the “Waldorf,” to register his name as a permanent guest.
His heart beat no throb warmer in acknowledgment of the seven thousand dollars’ windfall which was to bring his star up from an obscure western declination to a brilliant eastern right ascension.