And yet, as is often the case in carefully designed affairs, the one
element that made most powerfully for the success of Farbish's scheme
was pure accident. The carefully arranged meeting between the two men,
the adroitly incited passions of each, would still have brought no
clash, had not Wilfred Horton been affected by the flushing effect of
alcohol. Since his college days, he had been invariably abstemious.
To-night marked an exception.
He was rather surprised at the cordiality of the welcome accorded him,
for, as chance would have it, except for Samson South, whom he had not
yet seen, all the other sportsmen were men closely allied to the
political and financial elements upon which he had been making war.
Still, since they seemed willing to forget for the time that there had
been a breach, he was equally so. Just now, he was feeling such
bitterness for the Kentuckian that the foes of a less-personal sort
seemed unimportant.
In point of fact, Wilfred Horton had spent a very bad day. The final
straw had broken the back of his usually unruffled temper, when he had
found in his room on reaching the Kenmore a copy of a certain New York
weekly paper, and had read a page, which chanced to be lying face up (a
chance carefully prearranged). It was an item of which Farbish had
known, in advance of publication, but Wilfred would never have seen
that sheet, had it not been so carefully brought to his attention.
There were hints of the strange infatuation which a certain young woman
seemed to entertain for a partially civilized stranger who had made his
entrée to New York via the Police Court, and who wore his hair
long in imitation of a Biblical character of the same name. The supper
at the Wigwam Inn was mentioned, and the character of the place
intimated. Horton felt this objectionable innuendo was directly
traceable to Adrienne's ill-judged friendship for the mountaineer, and
he bitterly blamed the mountaineer. And, while he had been brooding on
these matters, a man acting as Farbish's ambassador had dropped into
his room, since Farbish himself knew that Horton would not listen to
his confidences. The delegated spokesman warned Wilfred that Samson
South had spoken pointedly of him, and advised cautious conduct, in a
fashion calculated to inflame.
Samson, it was falsely alleged, had accused him of saying derogatory
things in his absence, which he would hardly venture to repeat in his
presence. In short, it was put up to Horton to announce his opinion
openly, or eat the crow of cowardice.
That evening, when Samson went to his room, Farbish joined him.