since his last definite quarrel with Hathorn, and he knew, too, that these three “splendid examples of the evolution of American manhood” now made up a little coterie which was a sort of Three Guardsmen brotherhood around Mrs. Alida Hathorn.
There were rumors of gay little Sunday afternoon frolics at the Hathorns’, justifying Pip’s exclamation, “Such larks,” and these three young fellows now directed the broad-gauge festivities of a home whose master always wore a stern frown like the late lamented “Baron Rudiger” of the German song.
It was Harold Vreeland’s chosen part to be left judiciously uncompromised. He was still playing a waiting game. He knew that certain very dégagée
young “married women” afforded much “congenial pabulum” for these three sleek young society sharks, and that the careless Mrs. Alida Hathorn was fast drifting into their hands.
And so, after a long séance, wherein floods of wine drenched the festal board, the sly adventurer found out at last the motive of his sudden popularity.
When Rutherstone brought up the unlaid ghost of the late Wharton Willoughby, Vreeland cynically remarked: “I naturally know nothing of local social biography here. I am only a returned borderer, and am only engaged in making a proper business use of my capital. I stand calmly in the center of your New York circus and see its ‘free show’ swing around.
“My platform is that of the late Simon Cameron of blessed memory, ‘I don’t care a damn what happens as long as it does not happen to me.’”
“But, the lady has intimate business relations with your firm!” babbled Merriman.
“Did Fred Hathorn tell you so?” cuttingly sneered Vreeland. “Perhaps not, as you fellows are only chummy with his smart wife. Let her find it out for herself, by a personal visit to the lady in question.
“You might ask Wyman—he knows all our thousand customers’ affairs. I don’t bother much with the business,” loftily remarked Vreeland, as he hummed an old music hall refrain, “You can get onto an omnibus, but you can’t get onto me.”