[CHAPTER XXIV.]
Poverty is a great persuader. Numberless times it has forced people to put their pride in their pocket.
Vane Charteris, moping along in his law-office, finds such a dearth of clients that it would seem the world is for once at peace.
Nothing happens to break up the dull monotony of his life, or put a fee into his lank pockets. True, invitations pour in upon the "handsome rising young lawyer," but these he declines on the score of his mourning.
The city wakes up to the gayety of its winter season, but the ripple of joyous life flows past him unheeded. The lethargy of a hopeless grief is upon him. At last, with something of a shock, the vulgar and prosaic question of: "What shall we eat, and what shall we drink, and wherewithal shall we be clothed?" forces itself upon his consideration.
For Vane, handsome, careless, ease-loving Vane, has suddenly and thoughtlessly come to the end of his resources.
Bills, formidable, some of them, begin to pour in. Our hero, anxiously debating the question of "ways and means of raising the wind," begins to realize that business is strangely dull, and himself placed in a dilemma.
You understand that Vane Charteris is no perfect hero, my friends, you have seen that from the first. Self has in almost every instance ruled his thoughts; he has yielded to temptation, he has shown himself daily one of those petulant, faulty, yet daring types of men whom, after all, women cannot help loving.