me was nothing to me except
so far as he represented an instrument of my will. It was not in him
that I was interested half so much as in myself. In order to satisfy my
curiosity, I even planned in the spring a trip to New York with Aunt
Helen, and delighted my eyes with a glimpse of the sign-board over the
spacious offices of Francis Prime and Company. But on that day it was
veritably a glimpse that I got, for I was too timid to take a deliberate
scrutiny of what I had come to see, owing to the fact that every one I
met stared at me; and then too I was momentarily upset by perceiving
over the way just opposite, in great gilt letters, the rival sign, as it
seemed to me, of "Roger Dale, Banker and Broker." Mr. Dale I had not
seen for several years, but I knew that he was living in New York, where
he had not long before married an heiress of obscure antecedents,
according to rumor. That it was he I had little doubt; and though the
fact of his having an office in the same street could not of course
affect, either for evil or otherwise, the interests of my protege, I had
an indefinable feeling of dread at perceiving they were so near to one
another. It was therefore doubly necessary for me to be careful in my
subsequent expeditions down-town, not only to dress in such a quiet
unfashionable manner as not to attract the attention of passers, but so
as to escape recognition from my former admirer.

After the first impression of unpleasantness I felt a little added zest
on account of this element of risk, especially when on inquiry I learned
that Roger Dale was rated as one of the most successful and enterprising
of the younger banking firms in the city. I saw his advertisements in
the newspapers, and gathered from current talk that he was doing a large
and lucrative business. I was glad to know that he was happy and
prosperous at last, for he had failed once before leaving home, though I
never heard of it until a long while after; and under the influence of
this mood any vestige of ill-will that may have been lurking in my mind
died away, and I came to regard the rival sign with perfect equanimity
from behind the thick veil by which I concealed my features. Instigated
by a spirit of caution to make my disguise as complete as possible, I
purchased at a cheap clothing-store some garments that did much towards
rendering my personal appearance the very opposite of stylish. I even
tried to give them a soiled and worn aspect, by mean