It was upon the basis of the settlement of June 30th that the reports of July 1st, the annual election, were to be made.
But one thought now filled Clayton's agitated heart.
It was Irma Gluyas' future.

Her resolute policy of holding him off had inflamed Clayton's lover ardor to an overmastering passion.
Gallant and loyal, he had taken her at her own word.

The unconventional artist life, her romantic early history, her foreign birth, her carefully veiled coming debut, all this conspired to cover the singular reticence of the diva as to her home life.
He never had demanded her whole heart confidence, for he had been forced to veil from her his hopes of winning a fortune by one fell swoop upon the astounded Worthington.
"And then," murmured the passionate, heated lover, "I can tell her all.

I can give her a home, the power of wealth to set my jewel off, and there shall be nothing hidden between us." From first to last he had concealed nothing from her, save the mechanism of the short, sharp struggle which was to make him almost a millionaire, if Jack Witherspoon's bold plan succeeded.
It had been for her sake as well as his own that the veiled star, Irma Gluyas, had laughingly searched the map of New York and vicinity to find places of safe meeting.
To avoid Robert Wade's spies, to preserve Irma's incognito, they had exhausted the "lions" of every Long Island, Staten Island, and New Jersey village.

They had canvassed every place of resort within fifty miles of New York City.
With a dumb fidelity Madame Raffoni had accompanied her beautiful charge.