"What name, sir?" he asked, more respectfully.
"Sir John Armitage."
The clerk's hand shook so with surprise and nervousness that he dropped the book-plan on the floor.
Leaving the steamship offices, Armitage proceeded along Broadway, chuckling. How sweet was the power of money! Now he would be able to wield this power, to enslave men as they had enslaved him. Yet in the midst of this new-found joy, he knew there was something still lacking. He was haunted by a pair of dark eyes, lips that had trembled with passion he alone had awakened. What good was his money, his new-found power, if it would not give him the woman he wanted. Engaged to that spendthrift princeling, she was entirely lost to him. She had sold herself, and he tried to persuade himself that he despised her for it.
Yet how could he go away without saying good-by? It was different when everything looked hopeless, when his social standing was immeasurably beneath hers. He would never have subjected himself to a snub, and he had avoided her for that reason. He knew it would pain her to snub him, yet she would be compelled to do so. It would only have meant more suffering for him. But now it was different. He was more than her equal socially. In fact, he was her social superior. He could not go away without saying good-by. There could never be anything between them. She was going to marry the other fellow and satisfy her ambition to be a member of a royal house. Yet for all that they were still good friends.
He wondered how he could see her. The best way probably was to write her a letter, telling her he was sailing immediately and asking for an interview. He would say nothing about his accession to the title, but just that his condition had changed for the better. This revealed nothing, and yet would account for his better clothes and possession of funds.
A firm of ready-made clothiers speedily fitted him with a neat business suit and furnished all the other things he required. When the transformation was complete with a clean shave and hair cut, he did not recognize himself in the mirror.
That night he took rooms at the Waldorf, and after enjoying a good dinner with Mr. Willoughby at the Union League Club, he returned to the hotel, sitting down in the reading-room, he wrote Grace a letter.