CHAPTER IV.
“WYMAN AND VREELAND” SWING THE STREET.
Mr. Harold Vreeland was awake with the birds, and in an early morning walk long communed with himself under the whispering trees of Lakemere. The enchanting prospect of the superb estate delighted his eyes more with every visit. He blessed the goddess Fortune, and smiled truly, “the lines have fallen to me in pleasant places!”
It was only with a severe struggle that he concealed the secret joy now burning in his heart, and he carefully laid out all his plans for the crucial week to come. He must widen the breach.
There was the conference with Senator Alynton, Hiram Endicott, and that strange “big brother,” Hugh Conyers. He felt instinctively that these three men would not share “Madonna’s” enthusiasm.
He aimed to continually efface himself and to allow the resentful woman to goad herself along in the path of social and financial revenge.
“Any fool can stand hard times, but it takes a wise man to keep his head, under a run of winning luck!” he mused, with reminiscences of “Mr. John Oakhurst” and his pithy proverb, that “the luck usually got tired—before the man did.”
He retraced his steps to the house, and was most calmly quiescent and tenderly respectful in his adieu.
“That burst of confidence has fixed her—for good!” he mused.
“You are to report to me, here, by letter, the result of your interview with that man!” hurriedly whispered Elaine Willoughby, as her “knight” turned toward the wagonette. “I will summon you here, when Alynton comes. Do nothing else. Leave all to me.” And his eyes burned into her soul, as he promised a happy slave’s obedience.