“And then, you may find the two men whom I fear turn up together. But the very moment they take any steps that indicate the possession of the document, the tables are turned.
“They are then in our power. And Bagley may further trap Vreeland.”
“He may have sold his secret to Senator Garston,” faltered Elaine Willoughby. “The only man on earth whom I fear.”
“Fear nothing, however, while I am at your side, and Endicott is our Blucher in reserve. Our fears are always more real than our hopes,” said Conyers, as he relapsed into a brown study. He feared a self-betrayal.
The winsome woman at his side was gazing at him with a new and tender light in her eyes. “How noble he is! How true!” she sighed; for Hugh Conyers’ friendship was a rock in the desert of her life.
It was after four that afternoon when Harold Vreeland, plainly dressed, sauntered into the rear entrance of the “Circassia,” and sought the rooms of August Helms, the janitor. He was only waiting for the final sale of a soul and to hear the full story of Justine. The cold relegation to his routine duties at the office, and Mrs. Willoughby’s message, had now cut off all hopes of a nearer social approach.
“I must be very careful,” he mused. “These fellows down here are all on the watch; and if Elaine abandons me, I am half stranded with my winter’s extravagance and, my poor fifteen thousand dollars will not go very far. But, Garston counsels me to keep cool, to play my old game, and to post him. He must now give me his open aid, and Elaine may not then dare to thrust me out.
“And if I married Katharine Norreys, that would be the fairest reason for a transference into Senator Garston’s camp.
“He must give me his entire business in stocks.”
He had quietly dropped into his old business routine, and the waxen mask of his face was unruffled even before Wyman and Noel Endicott, his foes in ambush. He had in some dim way realized that Elaine Willoughby had only used him as a lever to crush the dead favorite, Hathorn. And he began now to fear her variable nature.