it opera season or concert tour, that, once success was achieved,
the eclipse of Love should hide her from the eager moths who flutter
around the risen star.

"She trusts me; I have not told her all. When I can give her
my whole life and a fortune," thought Clayton, "then I shall say,
'Irma, open the sealed books. There must be nothing hidden between
us.'"

With a serene confidence in Madame Raffoni, Randall Clayton always
came home alone and by circuitous routes, artfully varied, from
these strange trysts.

This stolen time seemed all too short to speak of their future,
gilded by a love which thrived strangely in the difficulties
besetting the strangely-met couple.

Clayton's mind was unclouded by suspicion. He had given his whole
destiny over to the keeping of the small blue-veined hands, which
lingered so lovingly on his heated brow. His watchfulness was only
turned upon Robert Wade's disgruntled spies.

From the heavily subsidized Einstein, Clayton gleefully learned that
the weekly "report" of one or the other of the Fidelity Company's
men consisted of a morose shake of the head and the single word,
"Nothing!"

The cashier laughed at Emil's report of Wade's accidentally overheard
angry growl, "Where the devil does he keep himself, any way?"