Smythe remarked that among his fellow-guests was Vandam, an official
of one of the great life-insurance companies. "Freddie" Vandam, as
the lady called him, was a man of might m the financial world; and
Montague said to himself that in meeting him he would really be
accomplishing something. Crack shots and polo-players and
four-in-hand experts were all very well, but he had his living to
earn, and he feared that the problem was going to prove complicated.

So ho was glad when chance brought him and young Vandam together,
and Siegfried Harvey introduced them. And then Montague got the
biggest shock which New York had given him yet.

It was not what Freddie Vandam said; doubtless he had a right to be
interested in the Horse Show, since he was to exhibit many fine
horses, and he had no reason to feel called upon to talk about
anything more serious to a stranger at a house party. But it was the
manner of the man, his whole personality. For Freddie was a man of
fashion, with all the exaggerated and farcical mannerisms of the
dandy of the comic papers. He wore a conspicuous and foppish
costume, and posed with a little cane; he cultivated a waving
pompadour, and his silky moustache and beard were carefully trimmed
to points, and kept sharp by his active fingers. His conversation
was full of French phrases and French opinions; he had been reared
abroad, and had a whole-souled contempt for all things American-even
dictating his business letters in French, and leaving it for his
stenographer to translate them. His shirts were embroidered with
violets and perfumed with violets--and there were bunches of violets
at his horses' heads, so that he might get the odour as he drove!

There was a cruel saying about Freddie Vandam--that if only he had