At first this was a sharp grief to Vandover; for years he had looked
forward to an artist's life in the Quarter. For a time he was
inconsolable, then at length readjusted himself good-naturedly to suit
the new order of things with as little compunction as before, when he
had entered Harvard. He found that he could be contented in almost any
environment, the weakness, the certain pliability of his character
easily fitting itself into new grooves, reshaping itself to suit new
circumstances. He prevailed upon his father to allow him to have a
downtown studio. In a little while he was perfectly happy again.

Vandover's love for his art was keen. On the whole he kept pretty
steadily to his work, spending a good six hours at his easel every day,
very absorbed over the picture in hand. He was working up into large
canvases the sketches he had made along the Maine coast, great, empty
expanses of sea, sky, and sand-dune, full of wind and sun. They were
really admirable. He even sold one of them. The Old Gentleman was
delighted, signed him a check for twenty dollars, and told him that in
three years he could afford to send him abroad.

In the meanwhile Vandover set himself to enjoy the new life. Little by
little his "set" formed around him; Geary and young Haight, of course,
and some half dozen young men of the city: young lawyers, medical
students, and clerks in insurance offices. As Vandover thus began to see
the different phases of that life which lay beyond the limits of the
college, he perceived more and more clearly that he was an exception
among men for his temperance, his purity, and his clean living.

At their clubs and in their smoking-rooms he heard certain practices,
which he had always believed to be degrading and abominable, discussed
with shouts of laughter. Those matters which until now he had regarded