. I had been eager to make
a name, a position for myself. But were I to claim no higher aim, I
should be doing injustice to my blood--to the great-souled gentleman
whose whole life had been an ode to honour, to her of simple faith who
had known no other prayer to teach me than the childish cry, "God help
me to be good!" I had wished to be a great man, but it was to have
been a great good man. The world was to have admired me, but to have
respected me also. I was to have been the knight without fear, but,
rarer yet, without reproach--Galahad, not Launcelot. I had learnt myself
to be a feeble, backboneless fighter, conquered by the first serious
assault of evil, a creature of mean fears, slave to every crack of the
devil's whip, a feeder with swine.

Urban Vane I had discovered to be a common swindler. His play he had
stolen from the desk of a well-known dramatist whose acquaintance he had
made in Deleglise's kitchen. The man had fallen ill, and Vane had been
constant in his visits. Partly recovering, the man had gone abroad to
Italy. Had he died there, as at the time was expected, the robbery might
never have come to light. News reached us in a small northern town that
he had taken a fresh lease of life and was on his way back to England.
Then it was that Vane with calm indifference, smoking his cigar over
a bottle of wine to which he had invited me, told me the bald truth,
adorning it with some touches of wit. Had the recital come upon me
sooner, I might have acted differently; but six months' companionship
with Urban Vane, if it had not, by grace of the Lord, destroyed the
roots of whatever flower of manhood might have been implanted in me, had
most certainly withered its leaves.

The man was clever. That he was not clever enough to perceive from the
beginning what he has learnt since: that honesty is the best policy--at
least, for men with brains--remains somewhat of a mystery to me. Where
once he made his hundreds among shady ways, he now, I suppose, makes his
thousands in the broad daylight of legitimate enterprise. Chicanery in
the blood, one might imagine, has to be worked out. Urban Vanes are to
be found in all callings. They commence as scamps; years later, to one's
astonishment, one finds them ornaments to their profession. Wild oats
are of various quality, according to the soil from which they are
preserved. We sow them in our various ways.

At first I stormed. Vane sat with an amused smile upon his lips and