"Ferris will have my power of attorney, and he alone will communicate with me. If Alice's health demands it, I may vary my route and look around in the Sierras, or take the summer run to Alaska. I fear the heat of the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea. But all will depend upon the doctors and their advice.
"Report only to Ferris as to any thing you wish to reach me. He will have my private cipher. All the rest is mere routine."
But the words of the old money-grabber angered Clayton less than
Ferris' effusive friendly epistles from Detroit.
"I can excuse Worthington," growled Clayton, as he paced his private room like a caged tiger. "He has his old crime to cover up, his only daughter to shield, his vast plans to further. I am only a poor pawn in his fevered game of life; but Ferris, 'mine own familiar friend,' he is a traitor, a needless traitor, to his black heart's core.
"For it is the sale of a soul, his dirty traffic in my heart's secrets, a Benedict Arnold of the heart, for mere dirty gain. And his cold ensnaring of this innocent girl is an outrage; it is a crime to make her the hostage of Senator Durham's corrupt friendship."
And yet, mindful of Jack Witherspoon's counsel, he took up the trade of an honest Iago, and hid his raging hatred behind the mask of an olden gratitude to the one, a loyal friendship to the other.
The searchlight of his mind was turned only on the Western conspirators, and he feared no villainy in the world save the Detroit schemer who had robbed him of his birthright. "By Heavens! I'll give up trade, the service of this greedy octopus. I will go abroad and so escape Worthington's vengeance, and Ferris' duplicity."
He began to secretly watch every one of the leading New York officials of the company in order to detect Ferris' successor in the hidden watch upon his movements.
It was with a secret longing for the coming Monday of the breakfast that Clayton passed Lilienthal's window, three days after Jack's sailing, in company with the grave-featured Robert Wade. His runaway heart was all unsuspicious now.
Thank Heaven! There was no longer the graceful woman lingering there fascinated by the picture whose sunset glories lit up in gold and purple the lonely man's rooms. But the suave dealer, waiting at his door, salaamed with effusion as the manager passed. His salute distantly included Clayton, and the action was not lost upon Robert Wade.