The circle at Lakemere was a large one, and Mr. Harold Vreeland, “with an equal splendor” and a touch “impartially tender,” became the favorite ami de maison. He failed not, however, to spread the balm of his cordial suavity on every side.
Day after day drifted happily by, the unspoken pact between the new friends becoming a stronger bond with every week, and the watchful vigilance of the young adventurer was never relaxed.
He was now grounded on society’s shores as a fixture, and apparently serenely unconscious, soon became the vogue without effort. The useless accomplishments of his college days now all came back to vastly aid the agreeable parvenu.
He had early mastered the secret of womanhood—the vague dislike possessed by all of Eve’s charming daughters for the strong-souled and unyielding superior man. For, be they never so wary, “trifles light as air” happily fill up the days of those women to whom American luxury is both enfeebling and jading. The strong man is not needed in the feather-ball game of high life.
That one rare art of the woman-catcher, “never to bring up, in the faintest degree, the affairs of another woman,” victoriously carried Vreeland on into the vacant halls of the filles de marbre. And so, “Mr. Harold Vreeland” was universally voted “a charming man of vast culture and rare accomplishments.”
Fortunately, Mr. Fred Hathorn had widely trumpeted abroad the Montana bonanza, and the vulgar slavering over an easily assumed wealth carried him on both fast and far.
In his own heart, one carefully crystallized plan had already matured. To reach the innermost holy of holies of Elaine Willoughby’s heart, and then, to rule at Lakemere—to secretly lord it later in the Circassia. With a fine acumen, he refrained from making a single enemy among her sighing swains or her fawning women parasites. “They must not suspect my game here,” he sleekly smiled.
But one brooding shadow hung over the sunshine of these days. He was always aware of the frequent visits of Judge Endicott. And Justine’s recitals proved to him that a hidden sorrow had its seat in her mistress’ soul.
There were dark days when Elaine Willoughby’s heart failed under the burden of a past which Vreeland had never tried to penetrate. She was inaccessible then. Guarding a perfect silence as to his own antecedents, he trusted to her in time to unfold to him the secrets of the heart which he had secretly sworn to dominate.
“I can be patient. I can afford to wait,” he mused, as with a faithful assiduity he came and went, and marked no shadows on the happy dial of those summer days.