“There was racing and chasing on Cannobie lea,” and the brilliant young matron was soon classed as a “Madame Benoiton,” jamais chez elle! And Vreeland soon followed her example, living also in the open.
In the hotel corridors of the Savoy, the curious shaven servitors often listened to the sounds of vigorous marital debate, wherein the low growl of Vreeland followed the strident soprano of Mrs. Katharine.
For, “Uncle James” had not yet been brought to book! And the young husband was brutally sullen.
There had been several bitter exchanges of hidden menaces between the two men at the Hotel Plaza. “I am fighting the fight of my life, Vreeland, now, over some great Western properties,” gruffly answered Senator Garston.
“I’ve no time now to go into Katharine’s affairs. Ask her; she will tell you that all is right.
“And I am, besides, carrying on a half-arm, in-fighting duel with that devil of a woman.
“I need you in your place to keep her quiet, and whether you wish to or not, you shall wait. That’s all.” The iron fist of the statesman made the glasses ring in an angry emphasis.
“You had better watch over your wife and keep her friendly with Mrs. Willoughby than try to budge me. I need both your help now, and, I propose to have it,” was Garston’s last shot, as he strode away. Certainly “Uncle James” did not mince matters.
And as the days drifted on, Vreeland became an object of remark, even in the hurry of Wall Street. His wife seemed to be on terms of a frank social intimacy with the Lady of Lakemere, but the man whom all had envied was rapidly becoming a profitable habitué of the Café Savarin. It was the beginning of the end of the “splendid run of luck.”
The funds received from Senator Garston, his purchase price, had been seriously depleted by the young wife’s extravagance, and soon, both roundsman Dan Daly and the cool Noel Endicott laid before Mrs. Elaine Willoughby the proof of Harold Vreeland’s heavy outside speculations in the “active stocks.” The desperate man was “plunging” now blindly.