“There are women here, too—women with hearts of flame, and who are to be won. I was a fool ever to go out to the frontier. Perhaps—”
And his mind reverted to a lucky college chum who had married a woman nearly two generations older than himself, but a well-preserved Madame “Midas.”
“By Jove! anything is better than this beastly poverty,” he mused. “Even that.”
“This is no era for poor men. Poverty is the only crime nowadays.”
His cynicism was broken off by the approach of two men, who rose to rejoin friends in the train as it dashed along toward the Bronx River.
As they came up the smoking-car, Vreeland easily recognized Fred Hathorn, the stroke of the college crew in which he had once won hard-fought honors for the orange.
There was no mistaking the easy luxury which exhaled from Mr. Fred Hathorn of the great firm of Hathorn and Potter, bankers and brokers of dingy Wall Street, a man who had already arrived!
The first crucial glance of rapid inspection was not lost on Vreeland, as Hathorn, in an easy way cried: “Hello, Hod Vreeland! What brings you over here?”
With a perfunctory politeness, Mr. James Potter halted and calmly acknowledged Hathorn’s listless introduction.
The little blonde man-about-town, however, gazed longingly ahead at the car where certain fair dames now awaited their escorts.