He took his hour through the clamor and the slime of the public ways. He escaped from these by his talismanic night-key, and stumbled up thoughtfully to his room.
There was a light burning in it, and the fireplace showed the faint red of dying coals. A valise, open and half unpacked, stood in the middle of the floor, and sitting up in bed was Brower, busy with the last volume of "Monte Cristo." They now occupied a large front room together, which Ogden had to himself a good half of the time.
"Back, are you?" said George. "When did you get in?"
"Hot much; one pretty girl. Where have _you_ been?"
"The old people. And some friends--Valentines."
"Valentine? I used to know a Valentine--nice, quiet fellow, light complexion. His name was Alpheus--no, Adrian."
"Poor fellow! he deserved a better fate."
George smiled. Brower hitched himself up on his pillow and put his finger into the book to keep the place. "He was a first-rate fellow --good all through and kind of capable; that is, he was worth a salary of eighteen hundred a year--or two thousand. He married a girl with two thousand a month. No head book-keeper, no cashier, no secretary could she let him be after that; no, Johnny must be his own master--except as regarded her. To-day he sort o' hangs on the outskirts of business, and picks up a little here and a little there--he has desk-room somewhere in the Clifton, I believe. He does the best he can to preserve his self-respect, but I don't see how he can pay the bills and the house-rent too."
"House-rent? They're building--I mean, _she_ is."
"Yaugh!" cried Brower, with deep meaning.
"Atwater's doing the house for them--for her."
"Atwater?" Brower gave a second hitch to the pillow, and threw the book to the foot of the bed. "He's another. He's had a trip in the same boat."
"I guess he is--just about as hard as any man ever was. But he has fought through gallantly--I'll say that for him."
"Begins in the same way. She was rich, too, and a high-flyer. He had education and family and his profession--and no money. He struggled up for ten years, and now--now he stands on his own legs; his wife has her own money for her clothes and amusements. He saw he had got to strike society, and he struck it--hard; he costs like smoke. But he snatched victory from defeat. It was a great act. Speaking of acts--who do you think I saw there in a stage-box to-night?"