The loss of his mother in his childhood and his father's lonely struggle to retrieve his fallen fortunes had left the boy without happy memories of boyhood, with no family history to aid him, and the embarrassment of his dependence upon Hugh Worthington had robbed him of the confidences incident to young manhood.
Only in his books had he learned of the passionate, hot hearts beating behind the silken armor of womanhood.
For who had noticed the dependent, the poor, plodding college boy?
Worthington's Detroit home was a mere social machine-shop, a place of vanished glories during the adolescence of Miss Alice, and no Diana had stooped to kiss the forgotten young Endymion sleeping in the Lethe of a New York business obscurity.

Clayton's life had been gilded by few joys.
His whole nature rose up in a sudden rebellion against this "personally conducted" career in life.

"I am to be a mere hoodwinked worker in this millionaire's treadmill.

A bond slave to one of the great Trusts which are chaining the whole American population to the galley-oar for life.
"I must be fairly paid, decently dressed, sufficiently fed, to play my part as a decent workman; that is all.

We will see!" He had now crushed out all lingering remnant of a friendly feeling for Ferris.
Even the last social invitation rankled in his mind.