His companions liked him all the more because he was unswerving in his resolve to touch no liquor. He went with them to bars and wine rooms, but he never touched wines, nor did other vices tempt him. Up in his room at the lodging house hung a picture he had drawn after reading the story of a man's downfall. He called it "Wine, Women, Woe."
He had now allowed his friends to believe him unmarried so long that it was next to impossible to explain. They alluded frequently to the sweetheart down in the country, and he smiled as if to say: "I don't mind being teased about her." He made no one his confidant and no one asked questions. The boys took it for granted that some day he would marry "the girl down there," and said nothing. He laughed when he thought of the surprise in store for them some day. This thought usually took him back to the day at Proctor's Falls when Celeste had spoken of him and Justine as sweethearts and had given him fifty dollars with which to buy her a wedding present. The name and face of the donor had haunted him ever since that day. Her card was in his pocketbook. Somewhere in this great city she lived and, he was beginning to know, left other cards in the halls of her friends every day—ordinary cards; not like this that had made a man's career. But there seemed to be no chance to tell her the difference. He had not seen her.
One of the fellows at the club was Converse, a rich young man with a liking for art and the will to cultivate a rather mediocre talent. He took a fancy to the handsome young newspaper man, and invited him to his home on the South Side. One evening late in March he dined with Converse and his parents. Douglass Converse was an only child and was little more than a boy in years. The home in Michigan Avenue was beautiful and its occupants lived luxuriously. The dinner over, the two young men lounged in Converse's "den"—a room which astonished and delighted Jud—smoking and chatting idly.
"Funny you don't drink, Sherrod," said Converse, quizzically.
"I took a pledge once, and I expect to keep it."
"Always?"
"Always."
"Pledge to your mother, I suppose?"
"No; to a girl who—lives down there."
"Oho, that's the first bit of sentiment I ever heard from you. A sweetheart, eh?"