Alva had been keeping some secrets of her own, not the least of which was a budding relationship with Willie’s best friend, Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont, the son of the financier and horse breeder August Belmont. Now that she was divorced, she no longer had to conceal it. Short, more pleasure-loving even than Willie, Belmont had been the subject of rumors, with regard to Alva, since 1888,
