For the first time in years the thought that he must count these little expenses flashed through his mind.  It was a disagreeable thing.

He decided he would lose no time living in hotels but would rent a flat.  Accordingly he told Carrie, and she agreed.

“We’ll look to-day, if you want to,” she said.

Suddenly he thought of his experience in Montreal.  At the more important hotels he would be certain to meet Chicagoans whom he knew.  He stood up and spoke to the driver.

“Take me to the Belford,” he said, knowing it to be less frequented by those whom he knew.  Then he sat down.

“Where is the residence part?” asked Carrie, who did not take the tall five-story walls on either hand to be the abodes of families.

“Everywhere,” said Hurstwood, who knew the city fairly well.  “There are no lawns in New York.  All these are houses.”

“Well, then, I don’t like it,” said Carrie, who was coming to have a few opinions of her own.

Chapter XXX THE KINGDOM OF GREATNESS—­THE PILGRIM A DREAM

Whatever a man like Hurstwood could be in Chicago, it is very evident that he would be but an inconspicuous drop in an ocean like New York.  In Chicago, whose population still ranged about 500,000, millionaires were not numerous.  The rich had not become so conspicuously rich as to drown all moderate incomes in obscurity.  The attention of the inhabitants was not so distracted by local celebrities in the dramatic, artistic, social, and religious fields as to shut the well-positioned man from view.  In Chicago the two roads to distinction were politics and trade.  In New York the roads were any one of a half-hundred, and each had been diligently pursued by hundreds, so that celebrities were numerous.  The sea was already full of whales.  A common fish must needs disappear wholly from view—­remain unseen.  In other words, Hurstwood was nothing.

There is a more subtle result of such a situation as this, which, though not always taken into account, produces the tragedies of the world.  The great create an atmosphere which reacts badly upon the small.  This atmosphere is easily and quickly felt.  Walk among the magnificent residences, the splendid equipages, the gilded shops, restaurants, resorts of all kinds; scent the flowers, the silks, the wines; drink of the laughter springing from the soul of luxurious content, of the glances which gleam like light from defiant spears; feel the quality of the smiles which cut like glistening swords and of strides born of place, and you shall know of what is the atmosphere of the high and mighty.  Little use to argue that of such is not the kingdom of greatness, but so long as the world is attracted by this and the human heart views this as the one desirable realm which it must attain, so long, to that heart, will this remain the realm of greatness.  So long, also,