or joining in the conversation, with a
coolness and appropriateness painfully suggestive of what their future
might be. Looking at these embryo merchants and fine ladies, from whose
pale little lips "dollar" and "change" fall more naturally than sweeter
words, Ruthven ceased to wonder at the struggle around him. He fancied
he could understand how these little people, strangers, as it seemed to
him, to a home or even to a childhood, should become in time the eager,
absorbed, unscrupulous runners and wrestlers, jostling each other in the
daily strife.

Ruthven was very bitter and unjust in many of his judgments during the
first part of his residence in C. He changed his opinions of many
things afterwards, partly because he became wiser, partly because he
became a little blind, and, especially, because he himself became
changed at last. By and by his life was too busy to permit him to watch
those about him, or to pronounce judgment on their aims or character.
Uncongenial as he had at first found the employment which his uncle had
provided for him, he pursued it with a patient steadiness, which made it
first endurable, then pleasant to him. At first his duties were merely
mechanical; so much writing, so much computing each day, and then his
time was his own. But this did not continue long. Trusted always by
the firm, he was soon placed in a position where he was able to do good
service to his employers. His skill and will guided their affairs
through more than one painful crisis. His integrity kept their good
name unsullied at a time when too many yielding to what seemed
necessity, were betaking themselves to doubtful means to preserve their
credit. He thoroughly identified himself with the interests of the
firm, even when his uncle was a comparative stranger to him. He did his
duty in his service as he would have done it in the service of another,
constantly and conscientiously, because it was right to do so. So
passed the first years of his commercial life.

In default of other interests, he gave himself wholly up to business
pursuits, till no onlooker on the busy scene in which he was taking part
would have thought of singling him out as in any respect different from
those who were about him. Those who came into close contact with him
called him honourable and upright, indeed, over scrupulous in many
points; and he, standing apart from them, and in a certain sense above
them, was willing so to be called. B