XV
THE LADY OF THE VIOLETS
Having decided that Mrs. Kale's did not present the best advantages, I determined to move to more suitable quarters. I chose a boarding-house, partly by accident and partly because it was in a semi-fashionable quarter which I liked, and I paid Mrs. Starling, the landlady, a decisive person, two weeks' board in advance, so as to have that long a lease at any rate, and a point from which to take my bearings. I had learned of the place through Kalender, who was deeply enamored of Miss Starling, a Byzantine-hued young lady, and who regarded the house somewhat as Adam is assumed to have regarded Eden after his banishment. Mrs. Starling was, in this case, the angel of the flaming sword. She had higher ambitions for Miss Starling.
I had less than forty dollars left, and fifteen of that was borrowed next day by a fellow-boarder named Pushkin, who occupied the big front room adjoining my little back hall-room, and who had "forgotten to draw any money out of bank," he said, but would "return it the next day at dinner time," a matter he also forgot. I was particularly struck with him not because he had a title and was much kotowed to by our landlady and her boarders—especially the ladies, as because I recalled his name in juxtaposition with Miss Leigh's in the flamboyant account of the ball the night after I arrived.
I was now ensconced in a little pigeon-hole of an office in a big building near the court-house, where, with a table, two chairs, and a dozen books, I had opened what I called my "law office," without a client or an acquaintance; but with abundant hopes.
I found the old principle on which I had been reared set at naught, and that life in its entirety was a vast struggle based on selfishness.
I was happy enough at first, and it was well I was. It was a long time before I was happy again. Having in mind Miss Leigh, I wrote and secured a few letters of introduction; but they were from people who did not care anything for me to people who did not care anything about them—semi-fashionable folk, mainly known in social circles, and I had no money to throw away on society. One, indeed, a friend of mine had gotten for me from Mr. Poole to a man of high standing both in business and social circles, the president of a manufacturing company, with which, as I learned later, Mr. Poole had formerly some connection. This gentleman's name was Leigh, and I wondered if he were the same person who had been posted by Kalender at the head of my story of the delayed train. I thought of presenting the letter. It, however, was so guarded that I thought it would not do me the least good, and, besides, I did not wish to owe anything to Lilian Poole's father, for I felt sure his influence had always been against me, and I was still too sore to be willing to accept a favor at his hands.
It was well I did not present it, for Mr. Poole with well-considered and characteristic prudence, had written a private letter restricting the former letter to mere social purposes, and had intimated that I had been a failure in my profession and was inclined to speculate. This character he had obtained, as I subsequently learned, from Peck.
The new conditions with which I was confronted had a singular effect on me. I was accustomed to a life where every one knew me and I knew, if not every one, at least something good or bad about every one.