So it was with a troubled heart that he applied himself to more rigorous professional endeavor.  Like most architects he had pursued certain lines of work because orders had come to him, and the chances of employment had ordained that his services should be sought for small churches, school-houses and kindred buildings in the surrounding country rather than for more elaborate and costly structures.  On these undertakings it was his habit to expend abundant thought and devotion.  The class of work was to his taste, for, though the funds at his disposal were not always so large as he desired for artistic effects, yet he enjoyed the opportunity of showing that simplicity need not be homely and disenchanting, but could wear the aspect of grace and poetry.  Latterly he had been requested to furnish designs for some blocks of houses in the outlying wards of the city, where the owners sought to provide attractive, modern flats for people with moderate means.  Various commissions had come to him, also, to design decorative work, which interested him and gave scope to his refined and aspiring imagination, and he was enthusiastically absorbed in preparing his competitive plans for the building of Wetmore College.  His time was already well occupied by the matters which he had in hand.  That is, he had enough to do and yet did not feel obliged to deny himself the luxury of deliberate thoroughness in connection with each professional undertaking.  Save for the thought that he must needs earn more in order to please Selma, he would have been completely happy in the slow but flattering growth of his business, and in feeling his way securely toward greater success.  Now, however, he began to ask himself if it were not possible to hasten this or that piece of work in order to afford himself the necessary leisure for new employment.  He began also to consider whether he might not be able, without loss of dignity, to put himself in the way of securing more important clients.  To solicit business was not to be thought of, but now and again he put the question to himself whether he had not been too indifferent as to who was who, and what was what, in the development of his business.

While Littleton was thus mulling over existing conditions, and subjecting his conduct to the relentless lens of his own conscience and theories, Selma announced to him jubilantly, about a fortnight subsequent to their conversation, that her secret was a secret no longer, and that Mr. Parsons desired to employ him to build an imposing private residence on Fifth Avenue near the Park.  Mr. Parsons confirmed this intelligence on the following day in a personal interview.  He informed Littleton that he was going to build in order to please his wife and daughter, and intimated that expense need not stand in the way of the gratification of their wishes.  After the business matters were disposed of he was obviously ready to intrust all the artistic details to his architect.  Consequently