“Sugar and Oil is a most profitable amorphous mixture.
“And he would now like to block Alynton’s little game—and so to be free to hold the past over this wonder-working woman’s head.”
“Senator Garston,” cried Vreeland, “you may yet find that love will not be led in chains. Of all hells on earth, the embrace of an unwilling woman is the coldest revenge of an outraged Nature. And he should beware of Elaine—if she can, she will strike back at him like a wounded lioness.
“And for my own safety there is but one rule, ‘Cash down on the delivery of goods.’
“And so far, he only proposes partial payments—with Katharine Norreys as our mutual gage of faith to the last.”
Agnostic as he was, Vreeland was forced to admit that Garston’s disclosure of Mrs. Willoughby’s marital chains had swept away his last hope of ever being the master of Lakemere.
She was still the wife of some unknown John Doe—and Vreeland knew that Garston would never babble.
The young broker was ready now to play his last card to make his position between the two enemies impregnable. He was again at Life’s crossroads. But he had a last little game to play out before a final decision.
He was the picture of elegant prosperity as he picked his way up the long stairs of the modest apartment on a side street where the humble Kelly family gazed from a four-story window upon a row of private stables opposite.
The hour was opportune, and his own coupé awaited him below. The hands of the little clock marked nine as Vreeland raised his hat to the white-haired old Irish mother seated there, prayer-book in hand, and giving a touch of dignity to the plain little “parlor.”