“With Justine in my pay, and Vreeland well coached, I may yet fathom the inner arcanum of the great impending deal.
“A union of the Sugar Trust and the Standard Oil interests would make the heaviest financial battery of modern times—and—by Jove—they would be able to swing Uncle Sam’s policy at will. Yes! I will push Vreeland to the front.”
With a hopeful glance at a sober banking structure, not far from the corner of Wall and Broad, the day-dreamer murmured, “I might even rise like him,” as he caught sight of a gray-mustached man, now supposed to be comfortably staggering along under the weight of a hundred brilliantly won millions.
“I have Alida VanSittart’s money—as an anchor. I will use this Vreeland as my tool. He’s an open-hearted fellow.”
Hiram Endicott, at the corner, watched the young banker dash by. The old lawyer’s thin form was still erect at sixty-five. His stern cameo face, and steady frosty eye, comported with his silken white hair.
He strode on, with the composed manner of an old French marquis. His heart was wrung with the passionate appeal of Elaine Willoughby to reopen an unavailing search of years. For she bore, in silence, a secret burden.
The morning had been given to the calm discussion of new means to unlock a mystery of the past, “to pluck out a rooted sorrow.”
Endicott’s nephew was now in sole charge of the giant battle with loaded dice, in the ring of Sugar speculation. The lawyer alone knew that Hathorn’s sceptre had departed from him. He cursed the retreating gallant.
“Can it be that the marriage of this cold-hearted young trickster has opened her eyes to the folly of educating a husband, in posse?
“Or—is it the shadow of the old sorrow, Banquo-like, returning? God bless her. I fear it is a hopeless quest.”