It was a mighty step from the sleepy little southern town where he had lived, to New York, with its supreme indifference to so small a unit in the struggling mass.
With his grave earnest eyes, which were almost pathetic in their seriousness, and the face, that the days of waiting had stamped with lines—markings of the hand that was empty for him—he was only one of many.
His mother was an invalid, his father had long been dead, and they were very poor. This bit of information he imparted with the utmost reluctance. I guessed at it without the telling, as no one, unless there was the grim incentive of pressing poverty, ever braved the terrors of life at Mrs. Tauton's.
Little by little he told me of his mother, and I saw that love for her was the one strong passion of his heart. She lived—none too happily—with relatives in the town that had been the home of his family for a great many generations.
He seldom or never spoke of what he would do for himself when he should achieve success; it was his mother who was to profit by it.
One night he came into my room and dropped dejectedly down on the edge of the bed, that answered all the purposes of a chair when not in actual use as a couch.
“What is it, Gavan?” I asked.
“Nothing much. Only my first year in New York is about at an end, and there is no gain of any sort to show for it. The whole thing has been miserably discouraging.”
“Why, Gavan, you are making important acquaintances all the time, who will aid you on to what you want.”
“It is deadly slow. It's forever and eternally to-morrow.”