y its manliness rather than
its perfection. His eyes were great, grey wells, which gave to women a
Narcissus-like reflection of their own impulses. They charmed by their
seeming sympathy, but were really the artful tools of conscious power.
To most men's minds curly hair is a blemish which barbers' shears and
bristly brushes may remove, but to women Duncan Grahame's short; crispy
black curls were a seldom failing charm. Although his eyes might deceive
even one who knew the countless evidences of breeding and career, his
mouth, partly hidden by a short moustache, betrayed the hard,
unmistakable markings of indulgence, and a student of life would have
mentally described him by the trite, though significant expression, "a
man of the world." And such was Duncan Grahame,--no better and no worse
than scores whose names adorn the blue books of metropolitan life. There
was once a time, not many years before, when he had been an innocent and
confiding boy. He had gone to school and then to college,--a dangerous
experiment at best, but, with a boy like Duncan, who had been brought up
within the strictness of a Connecticut home and turned upon the world
without a knowledge of it, pretty sure to result as it had turned out in
his case. It was the old story of weakness, ignorance, and a desire to
emulate his upper classmen and be a man. The first step was not taken
without a struggle, but one by one the cards of which the Puritan moral
structure was built were blown away, and, left without support, the
edifice collapsed. What other result could be expected? His Christian
ethics were but the expurgated teachings of the pulpit, tempered by
dogmas and doctrines, and in his home the faintest whisperings of the
real world brought blushes to his parents, and stilted, meaningless
words of warning. His first intimations of worldly ways were gathered
surreptitiously in the streets, and his first knowledge of the nature of
sin came with the temptation. The struggle was brief; perhaps it was as
strong as could be expected; and soon he was the careless, fearless
leader of the mischievous, rollicking set to be found in every college.
He became, he thought, a man, and knew the world. He left college and
after two years in London and Paris came to New York. His family was
excellent, his appearance attractive, his manners good, and his
assurance unbounded,--all that was needed, except money, to win social
success in the metropolis. Money he did not h