if I know my business,"
and he went into the one little combination parlor, sitting room,
reception room and general room of all work, to open his evening
newspaper and whistle. In his excitement he almost forgot his woes over
Carlotta and the love question in general. He was going to climb again
in the world and be happy with Angela. He was going to be an artist or a
business man or something. Look at Hudson Dula. Owning a lithographic
business and living in Gramercy Place. Could any artist he knew do that?
Scarcely. He would see about this. He would think this art business
over. Maybe he could be an art director or a lithographer or something.
He had often thought while he was with the road that he could be a good
superintendent of buildings if he could only give it time enough.

Angela, for her part, was wondering what this change really spelled for
her. Would he behave now? Would he set himself to the task of climbing
slowly and surely? He was getting along in life. He ought to begin to
place himself securely in the world if he ever was going to. Her love
was not the same as it had formerly been. It was crossed with dislike
and opposition at times, but still she felt that he needed her to help
him. Poor Eugene--if he only were not cursed with this weakness. Perhaps
he would overcome it? So she mused.

CHAPTER XXXI

The work which Eugene undertook in connection with the art department of
the _World_ was not different from that which he had done ten years
before in Chicago. It seemed no less difficult for all his
experience--more so if anything, for he felt above it these days and
consequently out of place. He wished at once that he could get something
which would pay him commensurately with his ability. To sit down among
mere boys--there were men there as old as himself and older, though, of
course, he did not pay so much attention to them--was galling. He
thought Benedict should have had more respect for his talent than to
have offered him so little, though at the same time he was grateful for
what he had received. He undertook energetically to carry out all the
suggestions given him, and surprised his superior with the speed and
imagination with which he developed everything. He surprised Benedict
the second day with a splendid imaginative interpretation of "the Black
Death," which was to accompany a Sunday newspaper article upon the
modern possibilities of plagues. The latter saw at once that Eugene
co