d to
be earning from ten to fifteen thousand a year. How high would that
place them, he asked himself, in that world of real luxury which was
made up of the so-called _four hundred_--the people of immense wealth
and social position. He had read in the papers that it took from fifteen
to twenty-five thousand dollars a year to clothe a debutante. It was
nothing uncommon, he heard, for a man to spend from fifteen to twenty
dollars on his dinner at the restaurant. The prices he heard that
tailors demanded--that dressmakers commanded, the display of jewels and
expensive garments at the opera, made the poor little income of an
artist look like nothing at all. Miss Finch was constantly telling him
of the show and swagger she met with in her circle of acquaintances, for
her tact and adaptability had gained her the friendship of a number of
society people. Miss Channing, when he came to know her better, made
constant references to things she came in contact with--great singers or
violinists paid $1000 a night, or the tremendous salaries commanded by
the successful opera stars. He began, as he looked at his own meagre
little income, to feel shabby again, and run down, much as he had during
those first days in Chicago. Why, art, outside the fame, was nothing. It
did not make for real living. It made for a kind of mental blooming,
which everybody recognized, but you could be a poor, sick, hungry,
shabby genius--you actually could. Look at Verlaine, who had recently
died in Paris.

A part of this feeling was due to the opening of a golden age of luxury
in New York, and the effect the reiterated sight of it was having on
Eugene. Huge fortunes had been amassed in the preceding fifty years and
now there were thousands of residents in the great new city who were
worth anything from one to fifty and in some instances a hundred million
dollars. The metropolitan area, particularly Manhattan Island above
Fifty-ninth Street, was growing like a weed. Great hotels were being
erected in various parts of the so-called "white light" district. There
was beginning, just then, the first organized attempt of capital to
supply a new need--the modern sumptuous, eight, ten and twelve story
apartment house, which was to house the world of newly rich middle class
folk who were pouring into New York from every direction. Money was
being made in the West, the South and the North, and as soon as those
who were making it had sufficient to permit them to live