He was
rather ashamed of his father now, and anxious to be a dashing gentleman,
like Plade or Pisgah.
Why did he play whist so badly? How chanced it that, having dwelt
eighteen months in Paris, he could speak no French? His only _grisette_
had both robbed him and been false to him. He knew that the Colony
tolerated him, merely. Was he indeed verdant, as they had said--obtuse,
stupid, lacking wit?
After all, he repeated to himself, what had the Colony done for him? He
had not now twenty francs to his name, and was a thousand francs in
debt; he had essayed to study medicine, but balked at the first lesson.
Yet, though these suggestions, rather than convictions, occurred to him,
they stirred no latent ambition. If he had ever known one high
resolution, the Southern Colony had pulled it up, and sown the place
with salt.
So he reached Master Lees' tenement; it was a long ascent, and toward
the last stages perilous; the stairs had a fashion of curving round
unexpectedly and bending against jambs and blank walls. He was quite out
of breath when he staggered against Lees' door and burst it open.
The light fell almost glaringly upon the bare, contracted chamber; for
this was next to the sky and close up to the clouds, and the window
looked toward the west, where the sun, sinking majestically, was
throwing its brightest smiles upon Paris, as it bade adieu.
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