Montague sat for a while in deep thought.

“What would you think would be Wyman’s relation to the matter?” he asked, at last.

“I wouldn’t know,” said Harvey.  “He’s supposed to be Freddie’s backer—­but what can you tell in such a tangle?”

“It is certainly a mess,” said Montague.

“There’s no bottom to it,” said the other.  “Absolutely—­it would take your breath away!  Just listen to what Vandain told me to-day!”

And then Harvey named one of the directors of the Fidelity who was well known as a philanthropist.  Having heard that the wife of one of his junior partners had met with an accident in childbirth, and that the doctor had told her husband that if she ever had another child, she would die, this man had asked, “Why don’t you have her life insured?” The other replied that he had tried, and the companies had refused her.  “I’ll fix it for you,” said he; and so they put in another application, and the director came to Freddie Vandam and had the policy put through “by executive order.”  Seven months later the woman died, and the Fidelity had paid her husband in full—­a hundred thousand or two!

“That’s what’s going on in the insurance world!” said Siegfried Harvey.

And that was the story which Montague took with him to add to his enjoyment of the festivities at the country club.  It was a very gorgeous affair; but perhaps the sombreness of his thoughts was to blame; the flowers and music and beautiful gowns failed entirely in their appeal, and he saw only the gluttony and drunkenness—­more of it than ever before, it seemed to him.

Then, too, he had an unpleasant experience.  He met Laura Hegan; and presuming upon her cordial reception of his visit, he went up and spoke to her pleasantly.  And she greeted him with frigid politeness; she was so brief in her remarks and turned away so abruptly as almost to snub him.  He went away quite bewildered.  But later on he recalled the gossip about himself and Mrs. Winnie, and he guessed that that was the explanation of Miss Hegar’s action.

The episode threw a shadow over his whole visit.  On Sunday he went out into the country and tramped through a snowstorm by himself, filled with a sense of disgust for all the past, and of foreboding for the future.  He hated this money-world, in which all that was worst in human beings was brought to the surface; he hated it, and wished that he had never set foot within its bounds.  It was only by tramping until he was too tired to feel anything that he was able to master himself.

—­And then, toward dark, he came back, and found a telegram which had been forwarded from New York.

“Meet me at the Penna depot, Jersey City, at nine to-night.  Alice.”

This message, of course, drove all other thoughts from his mind.  He had no time even to tell Oliver about it—­he had to jump into an automobile and rush to catch the next train for the city.  And all through the long, cold ride in ferry-boats and cabs he pondered this mystery.  Alice’s party had not been expected for two weeks yet; and only two days before there had come a letter from Los Angeles, saying that they would probably be a week over time.  And here she was home again!