"We will begin all over again, Van," his father said later that same day.

"We will start in again and try to forget all this, not as much as we _can_, but as much as we _ought_, and live it down, and from now on we'll try to do the thing that is right and brave and good." "Just try me, sir!" cried Vandover.
That was it, begin all over again.

He had never seen more clearly than now that other life which it was possible for him to live, a life that was above the level of self-indulgence and animal pleasures, a life that was not made up of the society of lost women or fast girls, but yet a life of keen enjoyment.
Whenever he had been deeply moved about anything, the power and desire of art had grown big within him, and he turned to it now, instinctively and ardently.
It was all the better half of him that was aroused--the better half that he had kept in check ever since his college days, the better half that could respond to the influences of his father and of Turner Ravis, that other Vandover whom he felt was his real self, Vandover the true man, Vandover the artist, not Vandover the easy-going, the self-indulgent, not Vandover the lover of women.
From this time forward he was resolved to give up the world that he had hitherto known, and devote himself with all his strength to his art.

In the first glow of that resolution he thought that he had never been happier; he wondered how he could have been blind so long; what was all that life worth compared with the life of a great artist, compared even with a life of sturdy, virile effort and patient labour even though barren of achievement?
And then something very curious happened: The little picture of Turner Ravis that hung over his mantelpiece caught his glance, looking out at him with her honest eyes and sweet smile.

In an instant he seemed to love her as he had never imagined he could love any one.