“Oh, I shall be fortunate. Good fortune is my destiny. Things come my way. My wants are few. I make friends easily. I have to make them easily, or I shouldn't make any, changing my place so often. A new place, new friends. Even when I go back to an old place, I rather form new friendships that chance throws in my way, than hunt up the old ones. I must confess I find new friends the more interesting, the more suited to my new wants. Old friends so often disappoint on revisitation. You change, they don't; or they change, you don't; or they change, and you change, but not in the same ways. The Jones of yesterday and the Brown of yesterday were eminently fitted to be friends; but the Jones of to-day and the Brown of to-day are different men, through different experiences, and don't harmonize. Why clog the present with the past?”
As he sipped his wine and ate his sandwich, gazing contentedly into the fire the while, Mr. Turl looked the living justification of his philosophy.
CHAPTER XI — FLORENCE DECLARES HER ALLEGIANCE
During the next few weeks, Larcher saw much of Mr. Turl. The Kenbys, living under the same roof, saw even more of him. It was thus inevitable that Edna Hill should be added to his list of new acquaintances. She declared him “nice,” and was not above trying to make Larcher a little jealous. But Turl, beyond the amiability which he had for everybody, was not of a coming-on disposition. Sometimes Larcher fancied there was the slightest addition of tenderness to that amiability when Turl regarded, or spoke to, Florence Kenby. But, if there was, nobody need wonder at it. The newcomer could not realize how permanently and entirely another image filled her heart. It would be for him to find that out—if his feelings indeed concerned themselves with her—when those feelings should take hope and dare expression. Meanwhile it was nobody's place to warn him.
If poor Davenport's image remained as living as ever in Florence Kenby's heart, that was the only place in New York where it did remain so. With Larcher, it went the course of such images; occupied less and less of his thoughts, grew more and more vague. He no longer kept up any pretence of inquiry. He had ceased to call at police headquarters and on Mrs. Haze. That good woman had his address “in case anything turned up.” She had rented Davenport's room to a new lodger; his hired piano had been removed by the owners, and his personal belongings had been packed away unclaimed by heir or creditor. For any trace of him that lingered on the scene of his toils and ponderings, the man might never have lived at all.
It was now the end of January. One afternoon Larcher, busy at his writing-table, was about to light up, as the day was fading, when he was surprised by two callers,—Edna Hill and her Aunt Clara.
“Well, this is jolly!” he cried, welcoming them with a glowing face.
“It's not half bad,” said Edna, applying the expression to the room. “I don't believe so much comfort is good for a young man.”