ans for its improvement. It had been
his toy. They had taken it from him, and the loss and the ridicule which
followed hurt him bitterly.

And for the lands he really owned in Mexico and California, and which,
if he were to live in comfort, it was necessary he should sell, he
could find no purchaser; and, moreover, having quarrelled with his
father-in-law, he had cut off his former supply of money. The need of it
pinched him cruelly.

The advertised cause of this quarrel was sufficiently characteristic
to be the real one. Moved by the attack of Great Britain upon his
principality, Harden-Hickey decided upon reprisals. It must be
remembered that always he was more Irish than French. On paper
he organized an invasion of England from Ireland, the home of his
ancestors. It was because Flagler refused to give him money for this
adventure that he broke with him. His friends say this was the real
reason of the quarrel, which was a quarrel on the side of Harden-Hickey
alone.

And there were other, more intimate troubles. While not separated from
his wife, he now was seldom in her company. When the Baroness was in
Paris, Harden-Hickey was in San Francisco; when she returned to San
Francisco, he was in Mexico. The fault seems to have been his. He was
greatly admired by pretty women. His daughter by his first wife, now a
very beautiful girl of sixteen, spent much time with her stepmother;
and when not on his father's ranch in Mexico, his son also, for months
together, was at her side. The husband approved of this, but he himself
saw his wife infrequently. Nevertheless, early in the spring of 1898,
the Baroness leased a house in Brockton Square, in Riverside, Cal.,
where it was understood by herself and by her friends her husband would
join her. At that time in Mexico he was trying to dispose of a large
tract of land. Had he been able to sell it, the money for a time would
have kept one even of his extravagances contentedly rich. At least,
he would have been independent of his wife and of her father. Up to
February of 1898 his obtaining this money seemed probable.

Early in that month the last prospective purchaser decided not to buy.

There is no doubt that had Harden-Hickey then turned to his
father-in-law, that gentleman, as he had done before, would have opened
an account for him.

But the Prince of Trinidad felt he could no longer beg, even for the
money belonging to his wife, from the man he had insulted. He could no