"Money is the one thing, my boy," sighed Jack. "Without it, Venus herself, ever young and ever fair, would be a millstone around any man's neck, in these later days. Great God! How you missed it! If I had only stumbled on this discovery sooner. You could have antedated Ferris' crafty game.
"You could have easily married Alice. She has often told my Francine that you were the noblest of men."
But the moody Randall Clayton had tired already of hearing Miss Francine Delacroix's praises in divers keys.
"Poor Little Sister," muttered Randall Clayton. "Traded off to a senator's nephew, for an illicit government pull. Damn all treachery!" he growled, as he stalked off to bed.
He felt that he was powerless in his calculating friend's hands, and yet, the possibilities of a coming future swept him from his feet. He wanted money now but for one purpose--revenge upon Arthur Ferris.
"Of course," he growled, "the dog knew the whole deal, and has been a secret guardian over me, in the interest of the thief who has robbed my father's grave. Poor, dear old Dad! If he had only remembered these cheap lands and set them aside for me. It was the only real estate holding forgotten in the hard-driven bargain which vastly enriched old Hugh. But old Hugh shall pay; yes, to the last farthing. I will lock up my heart. I will circumvent his spies, and then await my own hour of triumph. It will be a fight to the finish and no quarter asked or given. I swear it!"
A thorough confidence was reestablished between the two collegians before the coming of Monday morning took Randall Clayton back to his money mill. His first impulse to give up the apartment had returned to him. He now loathed the memory of Arthur Ferris as the slimy snake in the grass; and yet he resisted his desire to shove all the traitor's traps into a storage warehouse.
"Be ruled by me, Randall," urged Jack Witherspoon, as he set out on Monday morning for his last business conferences with the New York end of his railroad employers.
"I will surely make Hugh give up the million. You shall have your three-quarters, for it would be ruin to Worthington to drag out his relations with Durham."
"Play the honest Iago. Keep your counsel. Dismiss this from you mind. Make love to some pretty girl, amuse yourself. Do anything but drink or gamble. Keep up a jolly mien. Go in to the summer pleasures a little. It will throw these two crafty ones off their guard. The weeks will soon roll around. I will cable you of my return.