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 longer ask his wife to intercede for him. He was without
money of his own, with out the means of obtaining it; from his
wife he had ceased to expect even sympathy, and from the world
he knew, the fact that he was a self-made king caused him always
to be pointed out with ridicule as a charlatan, as a jest.
The soldier of varying fortunes, the duellist and dreamer, the
devout Catholic and devout Buddhist, saw the forty-third year of
his life only as the meeting-place of many fiascos.
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