He did not know that other dangers lurked in ambush ahead of himself. Mrs. Neff, ignorant of Stowe Webb's office, had come straight to Paris from the Imperator, bound to expose Alice again to the Senator's inspection. More dangerous yet was Winifred Mather. Tait had been warned of Mrs. Neff, but not of Winifred.
The heavy times in Wall Street had played havoc with Bob Fielding's means and with his spirits. The gradual jolting down and down of values, and the buying public's desertion of the market left the Stock Exchange like a neglected billiard parlor, where in the absence of customers the professionals played against one another—for points.
Bob Fielding was so big that when he was happy he was a Falstaff, but when he was unhappy he was a whale ashore. Winifred liked him happy. She grew weary of her blue Behemoth and began to think again of Senator Tait. She reasoned that he really needed a wife; it was a handicap to the Embassy to have only an elder daughter to run its social branch, especially such a daughter as Mildred, with her exasperating to-morrow's virtues and her last year's clothes. Winifred felt it her patriotic duty to marry the Embassy over.
She had a widowed sister in Paris, Mrs. Mather Edgecumbe. With her as complotter and under her ægis Winifred attacked Senator Tait in a campaign so skilfully arranged under so many disguises that Tait was left hardly a minute to himself. All his invitations included Forbes and Mildred and young Stowe Webb.
At one of them, a night fête in Mrs. Mather Edgecumbe's house in the Rue de Monceau, with musicians in Persian costume playing in the garden under the illuminated trees, Mrs. Neff and Alice were included unbeknown to Winifred. She was aghast at the tactical mistake, and she was curt enough when Alice, hastening as usual in one direction and looking in another, ran into her.
"Oh, it's you Alice. How are you? I didn't know you were in Paris. Followed the Senator over, I suppose."
"I suppose so," said Alice. "Did you?"
"Where's your mother?"
"She's probably looking for me. I hope she doesn't find me. Have you seen Stowe?"
"Somewhere," said Winifred, with a perceptible thaw. "Does your mother know he's here?"