Perhaps, because of his youth and a certain air of unsophistication and impracticability which went with him, his employers were not inclined to consider money matters in connection with him. They seemed to think he would work for little and would not mind. He was allowed to drift here six months without a sign of increase, though he really deserved more than any one of those who worked with him during the same period. He was not the one to push his claims personally but he grew restless and slightly embittered under the strain and ached to be free, though his work was as effective as ever. It was this indifference on their part which fixed his determination to leave Chicago, although Angela, his art career, his natural restlessness and growing judgment of what he might possibly become were deeper incentives. Angela haunted him as a dream of future peace. If he could marry her and settle down he would be happy. He felt now, having fairly satiated himself in the direction of Ruby, that he might leave her. She really would not care so very much. Her sentiments were not deep enough. Still, he knew she would care, and when he began going less regularly to her home, really becoming indifferent to what she did in the artists' world, he began also to feel ashamed of himself, for he knew that it was a cruel thing to do. He saw by her manner when he absented himself that she was hurt and that she knew he was growing cold. "Are you coming out Sunday night?" she asked him once, wistfully. "I can't," he apologized; "I have to work." "Yes, I know how you have to work. But go on. I don't mind, I know." "Oh, Ruby, how you talk. I can't always be here." "I know what it is, Eugene," she replied. "You don't care any more. Oh, well, don't mind me." "Now, sweet, don't talk like that," he would say, but after he was gone she would stand by her window and look out upon the shabby neighborhood and sigh sadly. He was more to her than anyone she had met yet, but she was not the kind that cried. "He is going to leave me," was her one thought. "He is going to leave me." Goldfarb had watched Eugene a long time, was interested in him, realized that he had talent. He was leaving shortly to take a better Sunday-Editorship himself on a larger paper, and he thought Eugene was wasting his time and ought to be told so. "I think you ought to try to get on one of the bigger papers here, Witla," he said to him one Saturday afternoon when things were closing up. "You'll never amount to anything on this paper. It isn't big enough. You ought to get on one of the big ones. Why don't you try the _Tribune_--or else go to New York? I think you ought to do magazine work." Eugene drank it all in. "I've been thinking of that," he said. "I think I'll go to New York. I'll be better off there." "I would either do one or the other. If you stay too long in a place like this it's apt to do you harm."