Richard Savage

“ 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. ”

“ The crawling hands of the clock were a torture to the man whose darkest purpose was now hidden behind a smiling face—for it is not often given, even to a smooth scoundrel, to betray two women at once. He was swimming in a sea of glory, now.
Vreeland slept but little after his conference with his resolute and beautiful patroness. He had scanned her face keenly to see the “sweet unrest of Love,” or the play of a hidden passion written there, but all that the keen schemer could discern was the calmness of a settled purpose, the poise of an unshaken self-control. ”

“ Brought to bay by the wild appeal, the excited woman realized that she dare not confer with either Alynton, Endicott or Conyers. The still unsoiled woman-heart revolted at the unveiling of all the sorrows of a shadowed life—those secret sorrows which had haunted her in all the gilded scenes of a strange prosperity, her burden carried under the veil of secrecy—her galling chain of secret sorrows. ”

“ And so each knew no more of the other’s heart secrets at the last than those impulsive outbreaks of Nature which will not down. But they had drifted very near on life’s sea. There were the wildest dreams of a brilliant future thronging Vreeland’s brain as he left the Millionaires’ Club to find Dr. Hugo Alberg in his midnight haunt where the Kegelbahn—beer of the stoutest Munich brew, and the songs of the Vaterland invited the Teuton to these cheap luxuries, recalling his happy student days. Vreeland soon caught his gloomy bird. ”

“ For he knew that the proud, silent lips before him might tell the story of a father’s shame to that unknown girl whose lovely face now haunted him. The girl whose picture still rested on the heart of the yet unbought Vreeland. For the schemer had carefully reclaimed his property.
“The past is sealed. You shall never hear her call you father. Mine she is forever, brought forth in tears, nurtured in sorrow and mine alone,” defiantly cried Elaine. “I have bought my freedom, with all these long and lonely years, and it is Nature’s revolt against the recreated passion of your youth. ”

“ And the shadows deepened around them, as the young schemer told a plaintive story of emotional lying embroidery to the woman whose agitated heart was swept with a storm of revengeful feeling.
A passionate desire to punish the younger woman whose husband had used the mean taunt of her sunset years to quiet the jealous little spitfire heiress.
“I did not come to New York City under false pretenses,” began Vreeland, “but, Hathorn has taken me wrongly to be a rich man. I am only a poor man to-day, and a weary and a lonely life lies before me.” ”

“ His quivering lips refused to lie, but he drew nearer to her menacingly. “Stand off!” she panted. “Your ownership is forfeit. The brute tyranny of marriage as made by man; you can not reforge the chain I wore once. Every fiber of my flesh revolts against your touch. And she—the pure, the innocent, you shall never see. I swear it!” He had thus raged at her side in brutal menaces.
“I go now to Alynton. They shall know whom they trust with secrets that would shake a nation,” the passion-blinded man growled, forgetting that he had dropped to the mere bully. ”

“ Helms was a modern tyrant.
His round, gray-blue eye twinkled as Justine Duprez would slyly slip in and read off the printed tape of the Wheatstone instrument, a duplicate sender and receiver of the same pattern being neatly encased in a pretty [211] cabinet in the pearl boudoir above. And Mrs. Willoughby doubted, feared, suspected—nothing.
But all in vain did Helms record the telephoned messages which were trapped on the instrument which was his especial care. There was nothing to record of moment. A lull seemed to hover over every speculative interest of the convalescent woman. ”

“ It is every one for himself now. And she dare not arrest me, for all her quiet suspicions. The other women were in charge. And Vreeland must protect me now.” Justine felt reasonably safe.
The woman dreamed uneasy dreams, however, that night, for she had realized in the past days, to her astonishment, that she had been skillfully kept chained to her mistress’ side. She knew nothing of the one darling hope of Elaine Willoughby’s heart, to hide Miss Romaine Garland forever from the gleam of the pitiless eyes of the passion-maddened husband of her youth. ”

“ Mr. Harold Vreeland showed a perfectly good form. There was a gentle gravity in his Waldorf life which impressed even the flâneurs of that gilded hostelry. “There, sir,” remarked an old habitué, “is a man who holds himself at his proper value.”
Measured and fastidious in all his ways, Mr. Vreeland neglected no trifling detail, and he calmly went onward and upward. He well knew that, for some as yet hidden reason, the bridegroom was assiduously forcing his old chum forward into the glittering ring of America’s Vanity Fair. ”

“ The mistress of Lakemere was frozen into a forced calm as she keenly eyed Justine Duprez standing with open-eyed astonishment before the woman whose heart was still racked with the sharp battle with Garston. But Justine’s heart was tranquil. The nurse was far away over the seas now.
The one man living who knew the vital secret of her life had thrown off his mask in the bitter conflict of the afternoon. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But, a singular social and speculative lethargy now seemed to have seized upon Mrs. Elaine Willoughby. The nearness of Lent, the reaction of the giddy winter social season, and the cares of a large property all contributed to keep the woman who had fought Alida Hathorn to a finish, out of the garish glare of show society.
All the news that Vreeland could gain from the watchful Doctor Alberg and the pliant Justine was, that the Lady of Lakemere was seemingly drifting into a settled melancholy. Vreeland was astonished at the dead water into which he himself had glided. ”

“ There had been no unworthy love between Elaine and Hathorn. The devil’s poison of slander alone had excited Alida’s burning jealousy. She herself had only sought “a dead straight point” in the daring visit to his rooms. Elaine’s record was clear so far. “Was it only an old sorrow?” He pondered long. Even the pale-faced, proud girl, whom he would trap, so far had hugged her honest poverty to a stainless bosom.
“I’ve been dead wrong on Alynton’s game all along. There’s neither an old love, nor a new intrigue, there,” he growled. “Justine has clearly proved that. ”

“ Harold Vreeland moved on serenely and laid his pitfalls for the pure young girl, whom chance had thrown in his way, with no compunction. In the blighted career of his own dishonored father, he had only despised the weaknesses which led to failure.
He had seen the downfall of Hathorn without a throb of sympathy and he resented the frank, honest predilection which was now leading the warm-hearted Potter to screen Alida Hathorn from a mob of cold-hearted “woman eaters” in honorable marriage. ”

“ But Hathorn never knew how eagerly Vreeland, at the Waldorf, his anxiety veiled by a thoughtful smile, watched the clock hands crawl around till seven.
“That fool has but one chance left to ruin me [72] forever—and—to block my little game!” restlessly reflected Vreeland. “If he only had the manly nerve to dash up to Lakemere and to throw himself there on Elaine’s generosity, he might be forgiven—even now. The swaying bosom of womanhood is always ripe for forgiveness. A woman is fondly weak to a man who calls up a lost love. ”

“ With an affected unconcern, Vreeland saw his friend disappear in a night hour club coupé, after swearing fidelity to the poker tryst.
But his heart was beating wildly, as he crawled upstairs in the gray of the dawn. “That’s her game; defense and revenge! I wonder if Hathorn really traced her out to Colorado, and has he an inkling of Alva Whiting?
“He’s not above levying a blackmail. And I am in some strange way her pawn in this veiled duel to the death, a duel between a man and woman who may have often rested in each other’s arms with vows of deathless love. ”

“ Greed, ambition, revenge, a desire to reach the gilded coterie of New York’s crème de la crème, all these motives Vreeland suspected, but not that an old love, revived in a burning passion, a mad desire for repossession, thrilled the hardened heart of the man “who had once thrown a pearl away, richer than all his tribe.” ”

“ The checks of the new firm on the “Chemical Bank” were already recognized as those of people “who could swing the Street,” and some daring “deals” had opened the game.
It was Vreeland’s duty to confer once daily with his strangely-found benefactress, and yet, he felt even now that he was but half within the door.
But one bitter hatred followed his rising star, and he soon heard the sneer of Frederick Hathorn: “So he lied to me, and has sneaked into business behind a woman’s petticoats.
“Wait! Set a beggar on horseback—he will ride to the devil.” ”

“ For the first time in his life, Harold Vreeland felt the snapping of handcuffs. “The jig is up!” cried Daly, facing the astounded culprit.
“I arrest you, Harold Vreeland, for robbing the United States mail,” cried a deputy marshal; but Dan Daly had already wrenched the stolen document from the hand of the ruined trickster. He remembered the last injunctions of the woman he served.
It was now safely hidden in his breast and lying against the picture of the girl whom Daly had sworn to make the happiest wife in New York. The one who would rule his little home! ”

“ Judge Endicott has told me nothing new of the elder Vreeland. I think I can suggest a plan to find the other man whom we want, or else a firm already in existence, which will commend itself to you, Senator. Let us advertise, guardedly, for a partner.”
With a sigh, Hiram Endicott drew Conyers out of the room, and while Senator Alynton yielded to the dark-eyed lady’s most ingenious plan, the old lawyer, under the trees, dejectedly said, “Conyers! there is again the woman enigma! A woman with heart certainly needs no head. And—a woman with a head should be heartless. ”

“ And Justine knew the faith of Mary Kelly but too well.
“I wonder if I am to be arrested on our arrival in New York,” gloomily mused the woman, who now felt herself entrapped. But her spirits rose as she realized that once in the “Circassia” there would probably be a visit from Harold Vreeland himself, at once. “If I can only see him, warn him, then we are safe, for he will shield me,” she exulted.
And Dr. Alberg, with August Helms, too, would be under her control. Then it would be an easy matter to thoroughly forewarn the man to whom alone she looked now for safety. ”

“ Vreeland has been lurking around here to warn Justine to meet him at once. He intends, I am sure, to leave the country, for I have already arrested Helms and the letter-carrier, Mulholland. You must act, and at once, or you will lose the bird.”
“Then,” cried Elaine Willoughby, turning ashen in her heart-sinking, “hasten to the rooms yourself. Arrest him! Get the paper! It must come to me alone, whatever happens—remember that. There is human life, public honor and the happiness of innocent hearts all hanging on your success. ”

“ Go! Bring Senator Alynton here at once,” cried the desperate woman.
“In your presence only, I will return to him the document which he demands. And its return marks my divorce for life from the Street. I have signed my last check for stocks, and my heart says Never Again!
“Go quickly; for when Romaine arrives I wish to be only the Lady of Lakemere. I have stepped down and out. I abdicate! There’s no longer a Queen of the Street.
“Noel Endicott can close up all my affairs under your directions.”
“And, Vreeland?” anxiously cried Judge Endicott. The woman’s lips trembled. ”

“ The old lawyer heard Elaine Willoughby’s cry of affright when Daly told her that Vreeland lay dead by his own hand in the squalid trysting place of sin.
Hugh Conyers, with a fine prescience of some coming tragedy, had held the boy messenger under his own eye in the rooms where he sat guarding Justine until her partner in crime should have been seized.
“Let no one know, not even him!” begged Daly. “Let the world always think it to have been a suicide induced by drink and overspeculation. I can cover it all up.
“Your daughter is safe now. Trust to no one but Conyers. ”

“ It was wormwood to the man who still aspired to read every hidden secret of Elaine Willoughby’s life to know that Wyman and Endicott now frequently spent the long evenings with the Queen of the Street at the “Circassia,” and that vouchers, schedules and papers covered the great table where only the three sat, well out of reach of Justine’s eaves-dropping.
“Cool old file is Endicott,” growled Vreeland. “Cased in steel armor of proof. Nor passion, pride, nor weakness ever leaves him open to the enemy a moment.”
And then his habitual sneer returned. “Bah! He is too old for all of man’s follies. ”

“ All these and many more things busied the disgruntled Hathorn until the hour set for the meeting with Vreeland. He had posted his wife and her train away up to the Buckingham, for he felt, instinctively, that the handsome groomsman was not just the party to linger around his newly-enclosed sheepfold.
He had already discovered several shades of color in his rosebud not visible to the ante-nuptial eye, and, moreover, he was hungry for news of Elaine Willoughby and of her state of mind. He now saw the “firm’s” interests seriously endangered. ”

“ All through the quiet duel of cards, Vreeland was haunted by the twin obstacles, Bagley and Miss Mary Kelly. “Bagley is a perfect servant, and I can not get any excuse to rid myself of him. My secrets are not kept where he can reach them,” mused Vreeland.
“The girl I surely dare not displace; but I can get around them both, if I have the right kind of a woman here near me. ”

“ There had been several bitter exchanges of hidden menaces between the two men at the Hotel Plaza. “I am fighting the fight of my life, Vreeland, now, over some great Western properties,” gruffly answered Senator Garston.
“I’ve no time now to go into Katharine’s affairs. Ask her; she will tell you that all is right.
“And I am, besides, carrying on a half-arm, in-fighting duel with that devil of a woman.
“I need you in your place to keep her quiet, and whether you wish to or not, you shall wait. That’s all.” The iron fist of the statesman made the glasses ring in an angry emphasis. ”

“ The wretched man little knew how ably Roper had fulfilled his trust as personal guard, how wisely Sara Conyers had concerted her measures.
Secretly smuggled away at night from the Dresden Klinik, Romaine Garland had been transported to Copenhagen in a private car, and, on beautiful Lake Malar, near stately Stockholm, an old chateau, now a secluded sanitarium, had given its welcome shelter to the three travelers. Judge Endicott’s all-seeing eye followed their every movement, and Roper had nobly upheld his trust. ”

“ What they are all up to is a devil’s wonder.
“Are they plucking her of her gold? There is such a thing as social blackmail. Any lonely woman of fortune usually has a ring of hungry sycophants around her.”
The German groaned helplessly. He wanted that same gold, and wanted it badly.
“And you, of course, think that you should be the king-pin of the whole machine,” sneered Vreeland. The half-angered German snorted a warning.
“Look out for yourself,” growled Alberg. “She does not let the French maid go out of her sight now, and her new nurse has not dared to leave. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ With tears of rage, Miss Joanna Marble gave up to him the picture of Romaine Garland, the one visible token of that young Diana’s existence.
“I have failed, and even the Mansons can get no trace. I have even sent the picture around among all the hackmen as far as the Harlem River,” was Joanna’s meager report. “The girl has simply vanished and left no trace behind.
“The man who ‘began her past’ for her has probably spirited the young vixen away. It was a masterly change of base, for she, sly one, took wing at once on recognizing that you would like to be something more than an employer.” ”

“ The stony-faced Senator-elect sprang to his feet, livid with rage. And Vreeland marveled as the angered man harshly cried:
“Never, by God! Impossible! How could he? There’s that girl—the one whom I’ve sworn to take away from her. The mother can not explain the presence of the child to her admirer.
“She dare not! For the Alyntons are all as proud as Spanish hidalgos, and young Alynton is no fool. He would have to find out that she had lied to him—that her whole past life has been a sham—and no man or woman can ever deceive David Alynton twice. He is merciless. ”

“ Garston smiled sardonically.
Harold Vreeland’s face was livid with rage as the strong man calmly gazed into his eyes and said: “If you have ever nourished the idea of managing Elaine Willoughby, you can dismiss it. The lady is some years your senior, and moreover, there may be prior claims. A man like you, with your present standing and possible future, should only mate with someone like Katharine Norreys. The maternal tinge to a marriage with an elder woman is not the thing for a man of your marked gifts, your position, and your career. You can do better. ”

“ There was no doubt as to the tangible luxury of her daily life, and the deep respect shown by the Hotel Savoy management spoke of that regular payment of bills which endears “the guest” to the Boniface.
“A certain number of women friends are a sine qua non, however, to a ‘professed beauty,’” mused Vreeland.
“Their absence is as remarkable as a bedizened general riding out all alone into the enemy’s land with no following. I presume that ‘prominent Westerners’ will in due time furnish her with a golden woman bodyguard. Garston being a widower, too, is another awkward thing.” ”

“ The secret of the hiding-place was his alone. He called the schoolboy a “shadow” no longer, for the work was done.
“Take my carriage. Get back and tell the mistress that I have got the paper she wants. Speak to no one else; and tell her that Vreeland will be put in a cell alone in Ludlow Street Jail as a United States prisoner. He’ll have no chance to talk!
“I’ll follow you up soon, see her, and then go and have him stowed away. I will bring the paper up to her myself. Hurry now, for God’s sake! I’ll take Helms and that French devil away later. Tell her not to breathe a word to a living soul. ”