Jasper himself saw a good deal of miscellaneous society at this time. He could not work so persistently as usual, and with wise tactics he used the seasons of enforced leisure to extend his acquaintance. Marian and he were together twice a week, in the evening.
Of his old Bohemian associates he kept up intimate relations with one only, and that was Whelpdale. This was in a measure obligatory, for Whelpdale frequently came to see him, and it would have been difficult to repel a man who was always making known how highly he esteemed the privilege of Milvain's friendship, and whose company on the whole was agreeable enough.
At the present juncture Whelpdale's cheery flattery was a distinct assistance; it helped to support Jasper in his self-confidence, and to keep the brightest complexion on the prospect to which he had committed himself.
'Whelpdale is anxious to make Marian's acquaintance,' Jasper said to his sisters one day. 'Shall we have him here tomorrow evening?'
'Just as you like,' Maud replied.
'You won't object, Dora?'
'Oh no! I rather like Mr Whelpdale.'
'If I were to repeat that to him he'd go wild with delight. But don't be afraid; I shan't. I'll ask him to come for an hour, and trust to his discretion not to bore us by staying too long.'
A note was posted to Whelpdale; he was invited to present himself at eight o'clock, by which time Marian would have arrived.
Jasper's room was to be the scene of the assembly, and punctual to the minute the literary adviser appeared. He was dressed with all the finish his wardrobe allowed, and his face beamed with gratification; it was rapture to him to enter the presence of these three girls, one of whom he had, more suo, held in romantic remembrance since his one meeting with her at Jasper's old lodgings. His eyes melted with tenderness as he approached Dora and saw her smile of gracious recognition. By Maud he was profoundly impressed. Marian inspired him with no awe, but he fully appreciated the charm of her features and her modest gravity. After all, it was to Dora that his eyes turned again most naturally. He thought her exquisite, and, rather than be long without a glimpse of her, he contented himself with fixing his eyes on the hem of her dress and the boot-toe that occasionally peeped from beneath it.
As was to be expected in such a circle, conversation soon turned to the subject of literary struggles.
'I always feel it rather humiliating,' said Jasper, 'that I have gone through no very serious hardships. It must be so gratifying to say to young fellows who are just beginning:
"Ah, I remember when I was within an ace of starving to death,"and then come out with Grub Street reminiscences of the most appalling kind. Unfortunately, I have always had enough to eat.'
'I haven't,' exclaimed Whelpdale. 'I have lived for five days on a few cents' worth of pea-nuts in the States.'
'What are pea-nuts, Mr Whelpdale?' asked Dora.
Delighted with the question, Whelpdale described that undesirable species of food.
'It was in Troy,' he went on, 'Troy, N.Y. To think that a man should live on pea-nuts in a town called Troy!'
'Tell us those adventures,' cried Jasper. 'It's a long time since I heard them, and the girls will enjoy it vastly.'
Dora looked at him with such good-humoured interest that the traveller needed no further persuasion.
'It came to pass in those days,' he began, 'that I inherited from my godfather a small, a very small, sum of money. I was making strenuous efforts to write for magazines, with absolutely no encouragement. As everybody was talking just then of the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia, I conceived the brilliant idea of crossing the Atlantic, in the hope that I might find valuable literary material at the Exhibition--or Exposition, as they called it--and elsewhere. I won't trouble you with an account of how I lived whilst I still had money; sufficient that no one would accept the articles I sent to England, and that at last I got into perilous straits. I went to New York, and thought of returning home, but the spirit of adventure was strong in me.
"I'll go West," I said to myself. "There I am bound to find material." And go I did, taking an emigrant ticket to Chicago. It was December, and I should like you to imagine what a journey of a thousand miles by an emigrant train meant at that season. The cars were deadly cold, and what with that and the hardness of the seats I found it impossible to sleep; it reminded me of tortures I had read about; I thought my brain would have burst with the need of sleeping. At Cleveland, in Ohio, we had to wait several hours in the night; I left the station and wandered about till Ifound myself on the edge of a great cliff that looked over Lake Erie. A magnificent picture! Brilliant moonlight, and all the lake away to the horizon frozen and covered with snow. The clocks struck two as I stood there.'
He was interrupted by the entrance of a servant who brought coffee.
'Nothing could be more welcome,' cried Dora. 'Mr Whelpdale makes one feel quite chilly.'
There was laughter and chatting whilst Maud poured out the beverage. Then Whelpdale pursued his narrative.
'I reached Chicago with not quite five dollars in my pockets, and, with a courage which I now marvel at, I paid immediately four dollars and a half for a week's board and lodging. "Well," Isaid to myself, "for a week I am safe. If I earn nothing in that time, at least I shall owe nothing when I have to turn out into the streets." It was a rather dirty little boarding-house, in Wabash Avenue, and occupied, as I soon found, almost entirely by actors. There was no fireplace in my bedroom, and if there had been I couldn't have afforded a fire. But that mattered little;what I had to do was to set forth and discover some way of making money. Don't suppose that I was in a desperate state of mind; how it was, I don't quite know, but I felt decidedly cheerful. It was pleasant to be in this new region of the earth, and I went about the town like a tourist who has abundant resources.'
He sipped his coffee.
