KATHARINE LAUDERDALE

KATHARINE LAUDERDALE

BY
F. MARION CRAWFORD
Author of “saracinesca,” “Pietro Ghisleri,” etc.
Vol. II
With Illustrations by Alfred Brennan
New York
MACMILLAN AND CO.
AND LONDON
1894
All rights reserved
Copyright, 1893,
By F. MARION CRAWFORD.
Norwood Press:
J. S. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith.
Boston, Mass., U.S.A.

CONTENTS.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
Vol. II.

KATHARINE LAUDERDALE.

CHAPTER XVI.

Katharine let Ralston accompany her within a block of Robert Lauderdale’s house and then sent him away.

“It’s getting late,” she said. “It must be nearly ten o’clock, isn’t it? Yes. People are all going out at this hour in the morning, and it’s of no especial use to be seen about together. There’s the Assembly ball to-night, and of course you’ll come and talk to me, but I shall see you—or no—I’ll write you a note, with a special delivery stamp, and post it at the District Post-Office. You’ll get it in less than an hour, and then you’ll know what uncle Robert says.”

“I know already what he’ll say,” answered Ralston. “But why mayn’t I wait for you here?”

“Now, Jack! Don’t be so ridiculously hopeless about things. And I don’t want you to wait, for I haven’t the least idea how long it may last, and as I said, there’s no object in our being seen to meet, away up here by the Park, at this hour. Good-bye.

“I hate to leave you,” said Ralston, holding out one hand, with a resigned air, and raising his hat with the other.

“I like that in you!” exclaimed Katharine, noticing the action. “I like you to take off your hat to me just the same—though you are my husband.” She looked at him a moment. “I’m so glad we’ve done it!” she added with much emphasis, and a faint colour rose in her face.

Then she turned away and walked quickly in the direction of Robert Lauderdale’s house, which was at the next corner. As she went she glanced at the big polished windows which face the Park, to see whether any one had noticed her. She knew the people who lived in one of the houses, and she had an idea that others might know her by sight, as the niece of the great man who had built the whole block. But there were only two children at one of the windows, flattening their rosy faces against the pane and drumming on it with fat hands; very smartly dressed children, with bright eyes and gayly-coloured ribbons.

As Katharine had expected, Robert Lauderdale was at home, had finished his breakfast and was in his library attending to his morning letters. She was ushered in almost immediately, and as she entered the room the rich man’s secretary stood aside

to let her pass through the door and then went out—a quiet, faultlessly dressed young man who had the air of a gentleman. He wore gold-rimmed spectacles, which looked oddly on his young face.

Robert Lauderdale did not rise to meet Katharine, as he sat sideways by a broad table, in an easy position, with one leg crossed over the other and leaning back in his deep chair. But a bright smile came into his cheerful old face, and stretching out one long arm he took her hand and drew her down and gave her a hearty kiss. Still holding her by the hand, he made her sit in the chair beside him, left vacant by the secretary.

“I’m glad to see you, my dear child!” he said warmly. “What brings you so early?”

He was a big old man and was dressed in a rough tweed of a light colour, which was very becoming to his fresh complexion. His thick hair had once been red, but had turned to a bright sandy grey, something like the sands at Newport. His face was laid out in broad surfaces, rich in healthy colour and deeply freckled where the skin was white. His keen blue eyes were small, but very clear and honest, and the eyebrows were red still, and bushy, with a few white hairs. Two deep, clean furrows extended from beside the nostrils into the carefully brushed beard, and there were four wrinkles, and no more, across the broad forehead. No one would have supposed that Robert Lauderdale was much over sixty, but in reality he was ten years older. His elder brother, the philanthropist, looked almost as though he might have been his father. It was clear that, like many of the Lauderdales, the old man had possessed great physical strength, and that he had preserved his splendid constitutional vitality even in his old age.

Katharine did not answer his question immediately. She was by no means timid, as has been seen, but she felt a little less brave and sure of herself in the presence of the head of her family than when she had been with Ralston a few minutes earlier. She was not aware of the fact that in many ways she dominated the man who was now her husband, and she would very probably not have wished to believe she did; but she was very distinctly conscious that she could never, under any imaginable circumstances, exert any direct influence over her uncle Robert, though she might persuade him to do much for her. He was by nature himself of the dominant tribe, and during forty years he had been accustomed to command with that absolute certainty of being obeyed which few positions insure as completely as very great wealth does. As she looked at him for a moment before speaking, the little opening speech she had framed began to seem absolutely inadequate, and she could not find words wherewith to compose another at such short notice. Being courageous, however, she did not hesitate long, but characteristically plunged into the very heart of the matter by telling him just what she felt.

“I’ve done something very unusual, uncle Robert,” she began. “And I’ve come to tell you all about it, and I prepared a speech for you. But it won’t do. Somehow, though I’m not a bit afraid of you—” she smiled as she met his eyes—“you seem ever so much bigger and stronger than I thought you were, now that I’ve got here.”

Uncle Robert laughed and patted her hand as it lay on the desk.

“Out with it, child!” he exclaimed. “I suppose you’re in trouble, in some way or other, and you want me to help you. Is that it?”

“You must help me,” answered Katharine. “Nobody else can. Uncle Robert—” She paused, though a pause was certainly not necessary in order to give the plain statement more force. “I’ve just been married to Jack Ralston.”

“Good—gracious—heavens!”

The old man half rose from his seat as he uttered the words, one by one, in his deep voice. Then he dropped into his chair again and stared at the young girl in downright amazement.

“What in the name of common sense induced you to do such a mad thing?” he asked very quietly, as soon as he had drawn breath.

Katharine had expected that he would be surprised, as was rather natural, and regained her coolness and decision at once.

“We’ve loved each other ever since we were children,” she said, speaking calmly and distinctly. “You know all about it, for I’ve told you before now just how I felt. Everybody opposed it—even my mother, at last—except you, and you certainly never gave us any encouragement.”

“I should think not, indeed!” exclaimed old Lauderdale, shaking his great head and beating a tattoo on the table with his heavy fingers.

“I don’t know why not, I’m sure,” Katharine answered, with rising energy. “There’s no reason in the world why we shouldn’t love each other, and it wouldn’t make the slightest difference to me if there were. I should love him just the same, and he would love me. He went to my father last year, as you know, and papa treated him outrageously—wanted to forbid him to come to the house, but of course that was absurd. Jack behaved splendidly through it all—even papa had to acknowledge that, though he didn’t wish to in the least. And I hoped and hoped, and waited and waited, but things went no better. You know when papa makes up his mind to a thing, no matter how unreasonable it is, one might just as well talk to a stone wall. But I hadn’t the smallest intention of being made miserable for the rest of my life, so I persuaded Jack to marry me—”

“I suppose he didn’t need much persuasion,” observed the old gentleman, angrily.

“You’re quite wrong, uncle Robert! He didn’t want to do it at all. He had an idea that it wasn’t all right—”

“Then why in the world did he do it? Oh, I hate that sort of young fellow, who pretends that he doesn’t want to do a thing because he means to do it all the time—and knows perfectly well that it’s a low thing to do!”

“I won’t let you say that of Jack!” Katharine’s grey eyes began to flash. “If you knew how hard it was to persuade him! He only consented at last—and so did the clergyman—because I promised to come and tell you at once—”

“That’s just like the young good-for-nothing, too!” muttered the old man. “Besides—how do I know that you’re really married? How do I know that you’re not—”

“Stop, please! There’s the certificate. Please persuade yourself, before you accuse me of telling falsehoods.”

Katharine was suddenly very angry, and Robert Lauderdale realized that he had gone too far in his excitement. But he looked at the certificate carefully, then took out his note-book and wrote down the main facts with great care.

“I didn’t mean to doubt what you told me, child,” he said, while he was writing. “You’ve rather startled me with this piece of news. Human life is very uncertain,” he added, using the clergyman’s own words, “and it may be just as well that there should be a note made of this. Hadn’t you better let me keep the certificate itself? It will be quite safe with my papers.”

“I wish you would,” answered Katharine, after a moment’s thought.

The production of the certificate had produced a momentary cessation of hostilities, so to speak, but the old gentleman had by no means said his last word yet, nor Katharine either.

“Go on, my dear,” he resumed gravely. “If I’m to know anything, I should know everything, I suppose.”

“There’s not very much more to tell,” Katharine replied. “I repeat that it was all I could do to persuade Jack to take the step. He resisted to the very last—”

“Hm! He seems to have taken an active part in the proceedings in spite of his resistance—”

“Of course he did, after I had persuaded him to. It was up to that point that he resisted—and even after everything was ready—even this morning, when I met him, he told me that I ought not to have come.”

“His spirit seems to have been willing to have some sense—but the flesh was weak,” observed the old gentleman, without a smile.

“I insist upon taking the whole responsibility,” said Katharine. “It was I who proposed it, and it was I who made him do it.”

“You’re evidently the strong-minded member, my dear.”

“In this—yes. I love him, and I made up my mind that it was right to love him and that I would marry him. Now I have.”

“It is impossible to make a more direct statement of an unpleasant truth. And now that you’ve done it, you mean that your family shall take the consequences—which shows a strong sense of that responsibility you mentioned—and so you’ve come to me. Why didn’t you come to me yesterday? It would have been far more sensible.”

“I did think of coming yesterday afternoon—and then it rained, and Charlotte came—”

“Yes—it rained—I remember.” Robert Lauderdale’s mouth quivered, as though he should have liked to smile at the utter insignificance of the shower as compared with the importance of Katharine’s action. “You might have taken a cab. There’s a stand close by your house, at the Brevoort.”

“Oh, yes—of course—though I should have had to ask mamma for some money, and that would have been very awkward, you know. And if I had really and truly meant to come, I suppose I shouldn’t have minded the rain.”

“Well—never mind the rain now!” Uncle Robert spoke a little impatiently. “You didn’t come—and you’ve come to-day, when it’s too late to do anything—except regret what you’ve done.”

“I don’t regret it at all—and I don’t intend to,” Katharine answered firmly.

“And what do you mean to do in the future? Live with Ralston’s mother? Is that your idea?”

“Certainly not. I want you to give Jack something to do, and we’ll live together, wherever you make him go—if it’s to Alaska.”

“Oh—that’s it, is it? I begin to understand. I suppose Jack would think it would simplify matters very much if I gave him a hundred thousand dollars, wouldn’t he? That would be an even shorter way of giving him the means to support his family.”

“Jack wouldn’t take money from you,” answered Katharine, quickly.

“Wouldn’t he? If it were not such a risk, I’d try it, just to convince you. You seem to have a very exalted idea of Jack Ralston, altogether. I’ve not. Do you know anything about his life?”

“Of course I do. I know how you all talk about the chances you’ve given him—between you. And I know just what they were—to try his hand at being a lawyer’s clerk first, and a banker’s clerk afterwards, with no salary and—”

“If he had stuck to either for a year he would have had a very different sort of chance,” interrupted the old gentleman. “I told him so. There was little enough expected of him, I’m sure—just to go to an office every day, as most people do, and write what he was told to write. It wasn’t much to ask. Take the whole thing to pieces and look at it. What can he do? What do most men do who must make their way in the world? He has no exceptional talent, so he can’t go in for art or literature or that sort of thing. His father wouldn’t educate him for the navy, where he would have found his level, or where the Admiral’s name would have helped him. He didn’t get a technical education, which would have given him a chance to try engineering. There were only two things left—the law or business. I explained all that to him at the time. He shook his head and said he wanted something active. That’s just the way all young men talk who merely don’t want to stay in-doors and work decently hard, like other people. An active life! What is an active life? Ranching, I suppose he means, and he thinks he should do well on a ranch merely because he can ride fairly well. Riding fairly well doesn’t mean much on a ranch. The men out there can all ride better than he ever could, and he knows nothing about horses, nor cattle, nor about anything useful. Besides, with his temper, he’d be shot before he’d been out there a year—”

“But there are all sorts of other things, and you forget Hamilton Bright, who began on a ranch—”

“Ham Bright is made of different stuff. He had been brought up in the country, too, and his father was a Western man—from Cincinnati, at all events, though that isn’t West nowadays. No. Jack Ralston could never succeed at that—and I haven’t a ranch to give him, and I certainly won’t go and buy land out there now. I repeat that his only chance lay in law or business. Law would have done better. He had the advantage of having a degree to begin with, and I would have found him a partner, and there’s a lot of law connected with real estate which doesn’t need a genius to work it, and which is fairly profitable. But no! He wanted something active! That’s exactly what a kitten wants when it runs round after its own tail—and there’s about as much sense in it. Upon my word, there is!”

“You’re very hard on him, uncle Robert. And I don’t think you’re quite reasonable. It was a good deal the old Admiral’s fault—”

“I’m not examining the cause, I’m going over the facts,” said old Lauderdale, impatiently. “I tried him, and I very soon got to the end of him. He meant to do nothing. It was quite clear from the first. If he’d been a starving relation it would have been different. I should have made him work whether he liked it or not. As it was, I gave it up as a bad job. He wants to be idle, and he has the means to be idle if he’s willing to live on his mother. She has ten thousand dollars a year, and a house of her own, and they can live very well on that—just as well as they want to. When his mother dies that’s what Jack will have, and if he chooses to marry on it—”

“You seem to forget that he’s married already—”

“By Jove! I did! But it doesn’t change things in the least. My position is just the same as it was before. With ten thousand a year Katharine Ralston couldn’t support a family—”

“Indeed, I could! I’m Katharine Ralston, and I should be—”

“Nonsense! You’re Katharine Lauderdale. I’m speaking of Jack’s mother. I suppose you’ll admit that she’s not able to support her son’s wife out of what she has. It would mean a great change in her way of living. At present she doesn’t need more. She’s often told me so. If she wanted money for herself, just to spend on herself, mind you—I’d give her—well, I won’t say how much. But she doesn’t. It’s for Jack that she wants it. She’s perfectly honest. She’s just like a man in her way of talking, anyhow. And I don’t want Jack to be throwing my money into the streets. I can do more good with it in other ways, and she gives him more than is good for him, as it is. People seem to think that if a man has more than a certain amount of money, he’s under a sort of moral obligation to society to throw it out of the window. That’s a point of view I never could understand, though it comes quite naturally to Jack, I daresay. But I go back. I want to insist on that circumstance, and I want you to see the facts just as they are. If I were to settle another hundred thousand dollars on Jack’s mother, it would be precisely the same thing, at present, as though I’d settled it on him, or on you. Now you say he wouldn’t take any money if I offered it to him.”

“No. He wouldn’t, and I wouldn’t let him if he wanted to.”

“You needn’t be afraid, my dear. I’ve no intention of doing anything so good-natured and foolish. If anything could complete Jack’s ruin for all practical purposes, that would. No, no! I won’t do it. I’ve given Kate Ralston a good many valuable jewels at one time and another since she married the Admiral—she’s fond of good stones, you know. If Jack chooses to go to her and tell her the truth, and if she chooses to sell them and give him the money, it will keep you very comfortably for a long time—”

“How can you suggest such a thing!” cried Katharine, indignantly. “As though he would ever stoop to think of it!”

“Well—I hope he wouldn’t. It wouldn’t be pretty, if he did. But I’m a practical man, my dear, and I’m an old fellow and I’ve seen the world on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean for over seventy years. So I look at the case from all possible points of view, fair and unfair, as most people would. But I don’t mean to be unfair to Jack.”

“I think you are, uncle Robert. If you’ve proved anything, you’ve proved that he isn’t fit for a ranch—and so you say there’s nothing left but the law or business. It seems to me that there are ever so many things—”

“If you’ll name them, you’ll help me,” said old Lauderdale, seriously.

“I mean active things—to do with railroads, and all that—” Katharine stopped, feeling that her knowledge was rather vague.

“Oh! You mean to talk about railroading. I don’t own any railroads myself, as I daresay you know, but I’ve picked up some information about them. Apart from the financing of them—and that’s banking, which Jack objects to—there’s the law part, which he doesn’t like either, and the building of them, which he’s too old to learn, and the mechanical part of them, such as locomotives and rolling stock, which he can’t learn either—and then there are two places which men covet and for which there’s an enormous competition amongst the best men for such matters in the country—I mean the freight agent’s place and the passenger agent’s. They are two big men, and they understand their business practically, because they’ve learned it practically. To understand freight, a man must begin by putting on rough clothes and going down to the shed and handling freight himself, with the common freight men. There are gentlemen who have done that sort of thing—just as fine gentlemen as Jack Ralston, but made of quite different stuff. And it takes a very long time to reach a high position in that way, though it’s worth having when you get it. Do you understand?”

“Yes—I suppose I do. But one always hears of men going off and succeeding in some out-of-the-way place—”

“But you hear very little about the ones who fail, and they’re the majority. And you hear, still more often, people saying, as they do of Jack Ralston, that he ought to go away, and show some enterprise, and get something to do in the West. It’s always the West, because most of the people who talk know nothing whatever about it. I tell you, Katharine, my dear, it’s just as hard to start in this country as it is anywhere else, though men get on faster after they’re once started—and all this talk about something active and an out-of-door existence is pure nonsense. It’s nothing else. A man may have luck soon or late or never, but the safest plan for city-bred men is to begin at a bank. I did, and I’ve not regretted it. Just as soon as a fellow shows that he has something in him, he’s wanted, and if he has friends, as Jack has, they’ll help him. But as long as a man hangs about the clubs all day with a cigarette in his mouth, sensible people, who want workers, will fight shy of him. Just tell Jack that, the next time you see him. It’s all I’ve got to say, and if it doesn’t satisfy him nothing can.”

The old gentleman’s anger had quite disappeared while he was speaking, though it was ready to burst out again on very small provocation. He spoke so earnestly, and put matters so plainly, that Katharine began to feel a blank disappointment closing in between her and her visions of the future in regard to an occupation for John. For the rest, she would have been just as determined to marry him after hearing all that her uncle had to say as she had been before. But she could not help showing what she felt, in her face and in the tone of her voice.

“Still—men do succeed, uncle Robert,” she said, clinging rather desperately to the hope that he had only been lecturing her and had some pleasant surprise in store.

“Of course they do, my dear,” he answered. “And it’s possible for Jack to succeed, too, if he’ll go about it in the right way.”

“How?” asked Katharine, eagerly, and immediately her face brightened again.

“Just as I said. If he’ll show that he can stick to any sort of occupation for a year, I’ll see what can be done.”

“But that sticking, as you call it—all day at a desk—is just what he can’t do. He wasn’t made for it, he—”

“Well then, what is he made for? I wish you would get him to make a statement explaining his peculiar gifts—”

“Now don’t be angry again, uncle Robert! This is rather a serious matter for Jack and me. Do you tell me, in real earnest, quite, quite honestly, that as far as you know the only way for Jack to earn his living is to go into an office for a year, to begin with? Is that what you mean?”

“Yes, child. Upon my word—there, you’ll believe me now, won’t you? That’s the only way I can see, if he really means to work. My dear—I’m not a boy, and I’m very fond of you—I’ve no reason for deceiving you, have I?”

“No, uncle dear—but you were angry at first, you know.”

“No doubt. But I’m not angry now, nor are you. We’ve discussed the matter calmly. And we’re putting out of the question the fact that if I chose to give Jack anything in the way of money, my cheque-book is in this drawer, and I have the power to do it—without any inconvenience,” added the very rich man, thoughtfully. “But you tell me that he would not accept it. It’s hard to believe, but you know him better than I do, and I accept your statement. I may as well tell you that for the honour of the family and to get rid of all this nonsense about a secret marriage I’m perfectly willing to do this. Listen. I’ll invite you all—the whole family—to my place on the river, and I’ll tell them all what has happened and we’ll have a sort of ‘post facto’ wedding there, very quietly, and then announce it to the world. And I’ll settle enough on you, personally—not on your husband—to give you an income you can manage to live on comfortably—”

“Oh!” cried Katharine. “You’re too kind, uncle Robert—and I thank you with all my heart—just as though we could take it from you—I do, indeed—”

“Never mind that, child. But you say you can’t take it. You mean, I suppose, that if it were your money—if I made it so—Jack would refuse to live on it. Let’s be quite clear.”

“That’s exactly it. He would never consent to live on it. He would feel—he’d be quite right, too—that we had got married first in order to force money out of you, for the honour of the family, as you said yourself.”

“Yes. And it’s particularly hard to force money out of me, too, though I’m not stingy, my dear. But I must say, if you had meant to do it, you couldn’t have invented anything more ingenious, or more successful. I couldn’t allow a couple of young Lauderdales to go begging. They’d have pictures of me in the evening papers, you know. And apart from that, I’m devilish fond of you—I mean I’m very fond of you—you must excuse an old bachelor’s English, sometimes. But you won’t take the money, so that settles it. Then there’s no other way but for Jack to go to work like a man and stick to it. To give him a salary for doing no work would be just the same as to give him money without making any pretence about it. He can have a desk at my lawyer’s, or he can go back to Beman Brothers’,—just as he prefers. If he’ll do that, and honestly try to understand what he’s doing, he shan’t regret it. If he’ll do what there is to be done, I’ll make him succeed. I could make him succeed if he had ‘failure’ written all over him in letters a foot high—because it’s within the bounds of possibility. But it’s of no use to ask me to do what’s not possible. I can’t make this country over again. I can’t create a convenient, active, out-of-door career at a good salary, when the thing doesn’t exist. In other words, I can’t work miracles, and he won’t take money, so he must content himself to run on lines of possibility. My lawyer would do most things for me, and so would Beman Brothers. Beman, to please me, would make Jack a partner, as he has done for Ham Bright. But Jack must either work or put in capital, and he has no capital to put in, and won’t take any from me. And to be a partner in a law firm, a man must have some little experience—something beyond his bare degree. Do you see it all now, Katharine?”

“Indeed, I do,” she answered, with a little sigh. “And meanwhile—uncle Robert—meanwhile—”

“Yes—I know—you’re married. That’s the very devil, that marriage business.”

He seemed to be thinking it over. There was something so innocently sincere in his strong way of putting it that Katharine could not help smiling, even in her distress. But she waited for him to speak, foreseeing what he would say, and did.

“There’s nothing for it,” he said, at last. “You won’t take money, and you can’t live with your mother, and as for telling your father at this stage—well, you know him! It really wouldn’t be safe. So there’s nothing for it but—I hate to say it, my dear,” he added kindly.

“But to keep it a secret, you mean,” she said sadly.

“You see,” he answered, in a tone that was almost apologetic, “it would be a mistake, socially, to say you were married, and to go on living each with your own family—besides, your father would know it like everybody else. He’d make your life very—unbearable, I should think.”

“Yes—he would. I know that.”

“Well—come and see me again soon, and we’ll talk it over. You’ll have to consider it just as a—I don’t know exactly how to put it—a sort of formal betrothal between yourselves, such as they used to have in old times. And I suppose I’m the head of the family, though your grandfather is older than I am. Anyhow, you must consider it as though you were solemnly engaged, with the approval of the head of the family, and as though you were to be married, say, next year. Can you do that? Can you make him look at it in that light, child?”

“I’ll try, since there’s really nothing else to be done. But oh, uncle Robert, I wish I’d come before. You’ve been so kind! Why did it rain yesterday—oh, why did it rain?”

CHAPTER XVII.

When Katharine left Robert Lauderdale’s house that morning, she felt that trouble had begun and was not to cease for a long time. She had entered her uncle’s library full of hope, sure of success and believing that John Ralston’s future depended only upon the rich man’s good will and good word. She went out fully convinced at last that he must take one or the other of the much-despised chances he had neglected and forthwith do the best he could with it. She thought it was very hard, but she understood old Lauderdale’s clear statement and she saw that there was no other way.

She sympathized deeply with John in his dislike of the daily drudgery, for which it was quite true that he was little fitted by nature or training. But she did her best to analyze that unfitness, so as to try and discover some gift or quality to balance it and neutralize it. And her first impulse was not to find him at once and tell him what had happened, but rather to put off the evil moment in which she must tell him the truth. This was the first sign of weakness which she had exhibited since that Monday afternoon on which she had persuaded him to take the decisive step.

She turned into Madison Avenue as soon as she could, for the sake of the quiet. The morning sun shone full in her eyes as she began to make her way southwards, and she was glad of the warmth, for she felt cold and inwardly chilled in mind and body. She had walked far, but she still walked on, disliking the thought of being penned in with a dozen or more of unsympathizing individuals for twenty minutes in a horse-car. Moreover, she instinctively wished to tire herself, as though to bring down her bodily energy to the low ebb at which her mental activity seemed to be stagnating. Strong people will understand that desire to balance mind and body.

She was quite convinced that her uncle was right. The more she turned the whole situation over, the clearer what he had said became to her. The only escape was to accept the money which he was willing to give her—for the honour of the family. But if neither she nor John would take that, there was no alternative but for John to go to work in the ordinary way, and show that he could be steady for at least a year. That seemed a very long time—as long as a year can seem to a girl of nineteen, which is saying much.

Katharine had seen such glorious visions for that year, too, that the darkness of the future was a tangible horror now that they were fading away. The memory of a dream can be as vivid as the recollection of a reality. The something which John was to find to do had presented itself to her mind as a sort of idyllic existence somewhere out of the world, in which there should be woods and brooks and breezes, and a convenient town not far away, where things could be got, and a cottage quite unlike other cottages, and a good deal of shooting and fishing and riding, with an amount of responsibility for all these things equal in money to six or seven thousand dollars a year, out of which Katharine was sure that she could save a small fortune in a few years. It had not been quite clear to her why the responsibility was to be worth so much in actual coin of the Republic, but people certainly succeeded very quickly in the West. Besides, she was quite ready to give up all the luxuries and amusements of social existence—much more ready to do so than John Ralston, if she had known the truth.

It must not be believed that she was utterly visionary and unpractical, because she had taken this rose-coloured view of the life uncle Robert was to provide for her and her husband. There are probably a great many young women in the Eastern cities who imagine just such things to be quite possible, and quite within the power and gift of a millionaire, in the American sense of that word, which implies the possession of more than one million, and more often refers in actual use to income than merely to capital. In Paris, a man who has twenty thousand dollars a year is called a millionaire. In New York a man with that income is but just beyond the level of the estimable society poor, and within the ranks of the ‘fairly well-off.’ The great fortunes being really as fabulous as those in fairy tales, it is not surprising that the possession of them should be supposed to bring with it an almost fabulous power in all directions. Men like Robert Lauderdale, the administration of whose estates requires a machinery not unlike that of a small nation’s treasury, are thought to have in their gift all sorts of remunerative positions, for which the principal qualifications are an unlimited capacity for enjoying the fresh air and some talent for fishing. As a matter of fact, though so much richer than ordinary men, they are so much poorer than all except the very small nations that they cannot support so many idlers.

Katharine knew a good deal about life in New York and its possibilities, but very little of what could be done elsewhere. She was perfectly well aware of the truth of all that her uncle had told her concerning the requirements for business or the law, for she had heard such matters discussed often enough. In her own city she was practical, for she understood her surroundings as well as any young girl could. It was because she understood them that she dreamed of getting out of them as soon as practicable, and of beginning that vaguely active and remunerative existence which, for her, lay west of Illinois and anywhere beyond that, even to the shores of the Pacific Ocean. John Ralston himself knew very little about it, but he had rightly judged its mythical nature when he had told her that Robert Lauderdale would do nothing for him.

The sun warmed Katharine as she walked down Madison Avenue, but everything was black—felt black, she would have said, had she thought aloud. Ralston would not turn upon her and say, ‘I told you so,’ because he loved her, but she could see the expression of his face as she looked forward to the interview. He would nod his head slowly and say nothing. The corners of his mouth would be drawn down for a moment and his eyelids would contract a little while he looked away from her. He would think the matter over during about half a minute, and then, with a look of determination, he would say that he would try what uncle Robert proposed. He would not say anything against the plan of keeping the marriage a secret, now that old Lauderdale knew of it, for he would see at once that there was absolutely nothing else to be done. They had gone over the possibilities so often—there was not one which they had not carefully considered. It was all so hopelessly against them still, in spite of the one great effort Katharine had made that morning.

She walked more slowly after she had passed the high level above the railway, where it runs out of the city under ground from the central station. As she came nearer to the neighbourhood in which John lived, she felt for the first time in her life that she did not wish to meet him. Though she did not admit to herself that she feared to tell him the result of her conversation with her uncle, and though she had no intention of going to his mother’s house and asking for him, her pace slackened at the mere idea of being nearer to him.

Then she realized what she was doing, and with a bitter little smile of contempt at her own weakness she walked on more briskly. She had often read in books of that sudden change in the aspect of the outer world which disappointment brings, but she had never quite believed in it before. She realized it now. There was no light in anything. The faces of the people who passed her looked dead and uninteresting. Every house looked as though a funeral procession might at any moment file out of its door. The very pavement, drying in patches in the sunshine, felt cold and unsympathetic under her feet.

She began to wonder what she had better do,—whether she should write John Ralston a long letter, explaining everything, or whether she should write him a short one, merely saying that the news was unfavourable—‘unfavourable’ sounded better than ‘bad’ or ‘disappointing,’ she thought—and asking him to come and see her in the afternoon. The latter course seemed preferable, and had, moreover, the advantage of involving fewer practical difficulties, for her command over her mother tongue was by no means very great when subjected to the test of black and white, though in conversation it was quite equal to her requirements on most occasions. She could even entirely avoid the use of slang, by making a determined effort, for her father detested it, and her mother’s conversational weaknesses were Southern and of a different type. But on paper she was never sure of being quite right. Punctuation was a department which she affected to despise, but which she inwardly feared, and when alone she admitted that there were words which she seemed to spell not as they were spelled in books—‘parallel,’ for instance, ‘psychology’ and ‘responsibility.’ She avoided those words, which were not very necessary to her, but with a disagreeable suspicion that there might be others. Had ‘develop’ an ‘e’ at the end of it, or had it not? She could never remember, and the dictionary lived in her grandfather’s den, at some distance from her own room. The difficulties of writing a long letter to John Ralston, whose mother had taught him his English before it could be taught him all wrong at a fashionable school, rose before her eyes with absurd force, and she decided forthwith to send for Ralston in the afternoon.

Having come to a preliminary conclusion, life seemed momentarily a little easier. She turned out of her way into Fourth Avenue, took a horse-car, got transferred to a Christopher Street one, and in the course of time got out at the corner of Clinton Place. She wrote the shortest possible note to John Ralston, went out again, bought a special delivery stamp and took the letter up to the Thirteenth Street Post-Office—instead of dropping it into an ordinary letter-box. She did everything, in short, to make the message reach its destination as quickly as possible without employing a messenger.

Charlotte Slayback appeared at luncheon. She preferred that meal when she invited herself, because her father was never present, and a certain amount of peaceful conversation was possible in his absence. It was some time since she had been in New York, and the glimpse of her old room on the previous afternoon irresistibly attracted her again. Katharine hoped, however, that she would not stay long, as Ralston was to come at three o’clock, this being usually the safest hour for his visits. Mrs. Lauderdale would then be either at work or out of the house, the philanthropist would be dozing upstairs in a cloud of smoke before a table covered with reports, and Alexander Junior would be still down town. In consideration of the importance of getting Charlotte out of the way, Katharine was more than usually cordial to her—a mistake often made by young people, who do not seem to understand the very simple fact that the best way to make people go away is generally to be as disagreeable as possible.

The consequence was that Charlotte enjoyed herself immensely, and it required the sight of her father’s photograph, which stood upon Mrs. Lauderdale’s writing-table in the library, to keep her from proposing to spend two or three days in the house after her husband should have gone back to Washington. But the photograph was there, and it was one taken by the platinum process, which made the handsome, steely face look more metallic than ever. Charlotte gazed at it thoughtfully, and could almost hear the maxims of virtue and economy with which those even lips had preached her down since she had been a child, and she decided that she would not stay. Her husband was not to her taste, but he never preached.

Mrs. Lauderdale had for her eldest daughter that sentiment which is generally described as a mother’s love, and which, as Frank Miner had once rather coarsely put it, will stand more knocking about than old boots. Charlotte was spoiled, capricious, frivolous in the extreme, ungrateful beyond description, weak where she should have been strong and strong where she should have been tender. And Mrs. Lauderdale knew it all, and loved her in spite of it all, though she disapproved of her almost at every point. Charlotte had one of those characters of which people are apt to say that they might have turned out splendidly, if properly trained, than which no more foolish expression falls from the lips of commonplace, virtuous humanity. Charlotte, like many women who resemble her, had received an excellent training. The proof was that, when she chose to behave herself, no one could seem to be more docile, more thoughtful and considerate of others or more charming in conversation. She had only to wish to appear well, as the phrase goes, and the minutest details necessary to success were absolutely under her control. What people meant when they said that she might have turned out splendidly—though they did not at all understand the fact—was that a woman possessing Charlotte Slayback’s natural gifts and acquired accomplishments might have been a different person if she had been born with a very different character—a statement quite startling in its great simplicity. As it was, there was nothing to be done. Charlotte had been admirably ‘trained’ in every way—so well that she could exhibit the finest qualities, on occasion, without any perceptible effort, even when she felt the utmost reluctance to do so. But the occasions were few, and were determined by questions of personal advantage, and even more often by mere caprice.

On that particular day, when she lunched quietly in her old home, her conduct was little short of angelic, and Katharine found it hard to realize that she was the same woman who on the previous afternoon had made such an exhibition of contemptible pettiness and unreasoning discontent. Katharine, had she known her sister less well, would almost have been inclined to believe that Benjamin Slayback of Nevada was a person with whom no wife of ordinary sensibility would possibly live. But she knew Charlotte very well indeed.

And as the hands of the clock went round towards three, Charlotte showed no intention of going away, to Katharine’s infinite annoyance, for she knew that Ralston would be punctual, and would probably come even a little before the time she had named. It would not do to let him walk into the library, after the late scene between him and her mother. The latter had said nothing more about the matter, but only one day had intervened since Mrs. Lauderdale had so unexpectedly expressed her total disapproval of Katharine’s relations with John. It was not probable that Mrs. Lauderdale, who was not a changeable woman, would go back to her original position in the course of a few hours, and there would certainly be trouble if John appeared with no particular excuse.

Katharine, as may be imagined, was by no means in a normal mood, and if she made herself agreeable to her sister, it was not at first without a certain effort, which did not decrease, in spite of Charlotte’s own exceptionally good temper, because as the latter grew more and more amiable, she also seemed more and more inclined to spend the whole afternoon where she was.

Hints about going out, about going upstairs to the room in which Mrs. Lauderdale painted, about possible visitors, had no effect whatever. Charlotte was enjoying herself and her mother was delighted to keep her and listen to her conversation. Katharine thought at last that she should be reduced to the necessity of waiting in the entry until Ralston came, in order to send him away again before he could get into the library by mistake. She hated the plan, which certainly lacked dignity, and she watched the hands of the clock, growing nervous and absent in what she said, as she saw that the fatal hour was approaching.

At twenty minutes to three Charlotte was describing to her mother the gown worn by the English ambassadress at the last official dinner at the White House. At a quarter to three she was giving an amusing account of the last filibustering affray in the House, which she had witnessed—it having been arranged beforehand to take place at a given point in the proceedings—from the gallery reserved for members’ families. Five minutes later she was telling anecdotes about a deputation from the South Sea Islands. Katharine could hardly sit still as she watched the inexorable hands. At five minutes to three Charlotte struck the subject of painting, and Katharine felt that it was all over. Suddenly Charlotte herself glanced at the clock and sprang up.

“I had forgotten all about poor little Crowdie!” she exclaimed. “He was coming at three to take me to the Loan Exhibition,” she added, looking about her for her hat and gloves.

“Here?” asked Katharine, aghast.

“Oh, no—at the hotel, of course. I must run as fast as I can. There are still cabs at the Brevoort House corner, aren’t there? Thank you, my dear—” Katharine had found all her things and was already tying on the little veil. “I do hope he’ll wait.”

“Of course he will!” answered Katharine, with amazing certainty. “You’re all right, dear—now run!” she added, pushing her sister towards the door.

“Do come to dinner, Charlie!” cried Mrs. Lauderdale, following her. “It’s so nice to see something of you!”

“Oh, yes—she’ll come—but you mustn’t keep her, mamma—she’s awfully late as it is!”

From a condition of apparently hopeless apathy, Katharine was suddenly roused to exert all her energies. It was two minutes to three as she closed the glass door behind her sister. Fortunately Ralston had not come before his time.

“I suppose you’re going to work now, mamma?” Katharine suggested, doing her best to speak calmly, as she turned to her mother, who was standing in the door of the library.

She had never before wished that Ralston were an unpunctual man, nor that her mother, to whom she was devotedly attached, were at the bottom of the sea.

“Oh, yes! I suppose so,” answered Mrs. Lauderdale. “How delightful Charlotte was to-day, wasn’t she?”

Her face was fresh and rested. She leaned against the doorpost as though deciding whether to go upstairs at once or to go back into the library. With a movement natural to her she raised her graceful arms, folding her hands together behind her head, and leaning back against the woodwork, looking lazily at Katharine as she did so. She felt that small difficulty, at the moment, of going back to the daily occupation after spending an exceptionally pleasant hour in some one’s company, which is familiar to all hard workers. Katharine stood still, trying to hide her anxiety. The clock must be just going to strike, she thought.

“What’s the matter, child? You seem nervous and worried about something.” She asked the question with a certain curiosity.

“Do I?” asked Katharine, trying to affect indifference.

Mrs. Lauderdale did not move. In the half light of the doorway she was still very beautiful, as she stood there trying to make up her mind to go to her work. Katharine was in despair, and turned over the cards that lay in a deep dish on the table, reading the names mechanically.

“Yes,” continued her mother. “You look as though you were expecting something—or somebody.”

The clock struck, and almost at the same instant Katharine heard Ralston’s quick, light tread on the stone steps outside the house. She had a sudden inspiration.

“There’s a visitor coming, mother!” she whispered quickly. “Run away, and I’ll tell Annie not to let him in.”

Mrs. Lauderdale, fortunately, did not care to receive any one, but instead of going upstairs she merely nodded, just as the bell rang, and retired into the library again, shutting the door behind her. Katharine was left alone in the entry, and she could see the dark, indistinct shape of John Ralston through the ground-glass pane of the front door. She hesitated an instant, doubting whether it would not be wisest to open the door herself, send him away, and then, slipping on her things, to follow him a moment later into the street. But in the same instant she reflected that her mother had very possibly gone to the window to see who the visitor had been when he should descend the steps again. Most women do that in houses where it is possible. Then, too, her mother would expect to hear Annie’s footsteps passing the library, as the girl went to the front door.

There was the dining-room, and it could be reached from the entry by passing through the pantry. Annie was devoted to Katharine, and at a whispered word would lead Ralston silently thither. The closed room between the dining-room and the library would effectually cut off the sound of voices. But that, too, struck Katharine as being beneath her—to confide in a servant! She could not do it, and was further justified by the reflection that even if she followed that course, her mother, who was doubtless at the window, would not see Ralston go away, and would naturally conclude that the visitor had remained in the house, whoever he might be.

Katharine stood irresolute, watching Ralston’s shadow on the pane, and listening to Annie’s rapidly approaching tread from the regions of the pantry at the end of the entry. A moment later and the girl was by her side.

“If it’s Mr. Ralston, don’t shut the door again till I’ve spoken to him,” she said, in a low voice. “My mother isn’t receiving, if it’s a visitor.”

She stood behind Annie as the latter opened the door. John was there, as she had expected, and Annie stepped back. Katharine raised her finger to her lips, warning him not to speak. He looked surprised, but stood bareheaded on the threshold.

“You must go away at once, Jack,” she whispered. “My mother is in the library, looking out of the window, and I can’t possibly see you alone. Wait for me near the door at the Assembly to-night. Go, dear—it’s impossible now. I’ll tell you afterwards.”

In her anxiety not to rouse her mother’s suspicions, she shut the door almost before he had nodded his assent. She scarcely saw the blank look that came into his face, and the utter disappointment in his eyes.

Seeing that the door was shut, Annie turned and went away. Katharine hesitated a moment, passed her hand over her brow, glanced mechanically once more at the cards in the china dish on the table and then went into the library. To her surprise her mother was not there, but the folding door which led to the dark drawing-room was half rolled back, and it was clear that Mrs. Lauderdale had gone through the dining-room, and had probably reached her own apartment by the back staircase of the house. Katharine was on the point of running into the street and calling Ralston back. She hesitated a moment, and then going hastily to the window threw up the sash and looked out, hoping that he might be still within hearing. But looking eastward, towards Fifth Avenue, he was not to be seen amongst the moving pedestrians, of whom there were many just then. She turned to see whether he had taken the other direction, and saw him at once, but already far down the street, walking fast, with his head bent low and his hands in the pockets of his overcoat. He was evidently going to take the elevated road up town.

“Oh, Jack—I’m so sorry!” she exclaimed softly to herself, still looking after him as he disappeared in the distance.

Then she drew down the window again, and went and sat in her accustomed place in the small armchair opposite to her mother’s sofa. She thought very uncharitably of Charlotte during the next quarter of an hour, but she promised herself to get into a corner with Ralston that evening, at the great ball, and to explain all the circumstances to him as minutely as they have been explained here. She was angry with her mother, too, for not having gone up the front staircase, as she might just as well have done, but she was very glad she had not condescended to the manœuvre of introducing John into the dining-room by the back way, as she would have probably just met Mrs. Lauderdale as the latter passed through. On the whole, it seemed to Katharine that she had done as wisely as the peculiarly difficult circumstances had allowed, and that although there was much to regret, she had done nothing of which she needed to repent.

It seemed to her, too, as she began to recover from the immediate annoyance of failure, that she had gained several hours more than she had expected, in which to think over what she should say to Ralston when they met. And she at once set herself the task of recalling everything that Robert Lauderdale had said to her, with the intention of repeating it as accurately as possible, since she could not expect to say it any better than he had said it himself. It was necessary that Ralston should understand it, as she had understood it, and should see that although uncle Robert was quite ready to be generous he could not undertake to perform miracles. Those had been the old gentleman’s own words.

Then she began to wonder whether, after all, it would not be better to accept what he offered—the small, settled income which was so good to think of—and to get rid of all this secrecy, which oppressed her much more since she had been told that it must last, than when she had expected that it would involve at most the delay of a week. The deep depression which she began to feel at her heart, now that she was alone again, made the simple means of escape from all her anxieties look very tempting to her, and she dwelt on it. If she begged Ralston to forget his pride for her sake, as she was willing to forget her own for his, and to let her take the money, he would surely yield. Once together, openly married before the world, things would be so much easier. He and she could talk all day, unhindered and unobserved, and plan the future at their leisure, and it was not possible that with all the joint intelligence they could bring to bear upon the problem, it should still remain unsolved.

Meanwhile, Ralston had gone up town, very much more disappointed than Katharine knew. Strange to say, their marriage seemed far more important in his eyes than in hers, and he had lived all day, since they had parted at ten o’clock in the morning, in nervous anticipation of seeing her again before night. He had gone home at once, and had spent the hours alone, for his mother had gone out to luncheon. Until the messenger with Katharine’s specially stamped letter rang at the door, he would not have gone out of the house for any consideration, and after he had read it he sat counting the minutes until he could reasonably expect to use up the remaining time in walking to Clinton Place. As it was, he had reached the corner a quarter of an hour before the time, and his extreme punctuality was to be accounted for by the fact that he had set his watch with the Lauderdales’ library clock,—as he always did nowadays,—and that he looked at it every thirty seconds, as he walked up and down the street, timing himself so exactly that the hands were precisely at the hour of three when he took hold of the bell.

There are few small disappointments in the world comparable with that of a man who has been told by the woman he loves to come at a certain hour, who appears at her door with military punctuality and who is told to go away again instantly, no adequate excuse being given for the summary dismissal. Men all know that, but few women realize it.

“Considering the rather unusual situation,” thought Ralston, angrily, “she might have managed to get her mother out of the way for half an hour. Besides, her mother wouldn’t have stoned me to death, if she had let me come in—and, after last night, I shouldn’t think she would care very much for the sort of privacy one has in a ball-room.”

He had waited all day to see her, and he had nothing to do until the evening, when he had to go to a dinner-party before the Assembly ball. He naturally thought of his club, as a quiet place where he could be alone with his annoyances and disappointments between three and four o’clock, and he took the elevated road as the shortest way of getting there.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Ralston was in a thoroughly bad humour when he reached his club. The absurdity of a marriage, which was practically no marriage at all, had been thrust upon him on the very first day, and he felt that he had been led into a romantic piece of folly, which could not possibly produce any good results, either at the present time or afterwards. He was as properly and legally the husband of Katharine as the law and the church could make him, and yet he could not even get an interview of a quarter of an hour with his wife. He could not count, with certainty, upon seeing her anywhere, except at such a public place as the ball they were both going to that night, under the eyes of all New York society, so far as it existed for them. The position was ludicrous, or would have been, had he not been the principal actor in the comedy.

He was sure, too, that if Katharine had got any favourable answer from their uncle Robert, she would have said at least a word to this effect, even while she was in the act of thrusting him from the door. Two words, ‘all right,’ would have been enough. But she had only seemed anxious to get rid of him as quickly as possible, and he felt that he was not to be blamed for being angry. The details of the situation, as she had seen it, were quite unknown to him. He was not aware that Charlotte Slayback had been at luncheon, and had stayed until the last minute, nor that Katharine had really done everything in her power to make her mother go upstairs. The details, indeed, taken separately, were laughable in their insignificance, and it would hardly be possible for Katharine to explain them to him, so as to make him see their importance when taken all together. He was ignorant of them all, except of the fancied fact that Mrs. Lauderdale had been at the window of the library. Katharine had told him so, and had believed it herself, as was natural. She had not had time to explain why she believed it, and he would be more angry than ever if she ever told him that she had been mistaken, and that he might just as well have come and stayed as long as he pleased. He knew that a considerable time must have elapsed between the end of luncheon and his arrival at the door of the house; he supposed that Katharine had been alone with her mother and grandfather, as usual, and he blamed her for not exerting a little tact in getting her mother out of the way, when she must have had nearly an hour in which to do so. He went over and over all that he knew of the facts, and reached always the same conclusion—Katharine had not taken the trouble, and had probably only remembered when it was too late that he was to come at three o’clock.

It must not be supposed that Ralston belonged to the class of hasty and capricious men, who hate the object of their affections as soon as they are in the least annoyed with anything she has done—or who, at all events, act as though they did. Ralston was merely in an excessively bad temper with himself, with everything he had done and with the world at large. Had he received a note from Katharine at any time later in the afternoon, telling him to come back, he would have gone instantly, with just as much impatience as he had shown at three o’clock, when he had reached Clinton Place a quarter of an hour before the appointed time. He would probably not have alluded, nor even have wished to allude, to his summary dismissal at his first attempt. But he would come. He satisfied himself of that, for he sent a message from his club to his home, directing the servant to send on any note which might come for him; and, on repeating the message an hour later, he was told that there was nothing to send.

So he sat in the general room at the club, downstairs, and turned over a newspaper half a dozen times without understanding a word of its contents, and smoked discontentedly, but without ceasing. At last, by a mere accident, his eye fell upon the column of situations offered and wanted, and, with a sour smile, he began to read the advertisements. That sort of thing suited his case, at all events, he thought. He was very soon struck by the balance of numbers in favour of the unemployed, and by the severe manner in which those who offered situations spoke of thorough knowledge and of certificates of service.

It did not take him long to convince himself that he was fit for nothing but a shoeblack or a messenger boy, and he fancied that his age would be a drawback in either profession. He dropped the paper in disgust at last, and was suddenly aware that Frank Miner was seated at a small table opposite to him, but on the other side of the room. Miner looked up at the same moment, from a letter he was writing, his attention being attracted by the rustling of the paper.

“Hallo, Jack!” he cried, cheerily. “I knew those were your legs all the time.”

“Why didn’t you speak, then?” asked Ralston, rather coldly, and looking up and down the columns of the paper he had dropped upon his knee.

“I don’t know. Why should I?” Miner went on with his letter, having evidently interrupted himself in the midst of a sentence.

Ralston wished something would happen. He felt suddenly inclined to throw something at Miner, who generally amused him when he talked, but was clearly very busy, and went on writing as though his cheerful little life depended on it. But it was not probable that anything should happen just at that hour. There were three or four other men in different parts of the big room, writing or reading letters. There were doubtless a few others somewhere in the house, playing cards or drinking a quiet afternoon cocktail. It was a big club, having many rooms. But Ralston did not feel inclined to play poker, and he wished not to drink, if he could help it, and Miner went on writing, so he stayed where he was, and brooded over his annoyances. Suddenly Miner’s pen ceased with a scratch and a dash, audible all over the room, and he began to fold his letter.

“Come and have a drink, Jack!” he called out to Ralston, as he took up an envelope. “I’ve earned it, if you haven’t.”

“I don’t want to drink,” answered Ralston, gloomily, and, out of pure contrariety, he took up his paper again.

Miner looked long and steadily at him, closed his letter, put it into his pocket and crossed the room.

“I say, Jack,” he said, in an absurdly solemn tone, “are you ill, old man?”

“Ill? No. Why? Never was better in my life. Don’t be an idiot, Frank.” And he kept his paper at the level of his eyes.

“There’s something wrong, anyhow,” said Miner, thoughtfully. “Never knew you to refuse to drink before. I’ll be damned, you know!”

“I haven’t a doubt of it, my dear fellow. I always told you so.”

“For a gentle and unassuming manner, I think you take the cake, Jack,” answered Miner, without a smile. “What on earth is the matter with you? Let me see—you’ve either lost money, or you’re in love, or your liver’s out of order, or all three, and if that’s it, I pity you.”

“I tell you there’s nothing the matter with me!” cried Ralston, with some temper. “Why do you keep bothering me? I merely said I didn’t want to drink. Can’t a man not be thirsty? Confound it all, I’m not obliged to drink if I don’t want to!”

“Oh, well, don’t get into a fiery green rage about it, Jack. I’m thirsty myself, and I didn’t want to drink alone. Only, don’t go west of Maine so long as this lasts. They’re prohibition there, you know. Don’t try it, Jack; you’d come back on ice by the next train.”

“I’m going to stay here,” answered Ralston, without a smile. “Go ahead and get your drink.”

“All right! If you won’t, you won’t, I know. But when you’re scratching round and trying to get some sympathetic person, like Abraham and Lazarus, to give you a glass of water, think of what you’ve missed this afternoon!”

“Dives,” said Ralston, savagely, “is the only man ever mentioned in the Bible as having asked for a glass of water, and he’s—where he ought to be.”

“That’s an old, cold chestnut,” retorted Miner, turning to go, but not really in the least annoyed.

At that moment a servant crossed the room and stood before Ralston. Miner waited to see what would happen, half believing that Ralston was not in earnest, but had surreptitiously touched the electric bell on the table at his elbow, with the intention of ordering something.

“Mr. Lauderdale wishes to speak to you at the telephone, sir,” said the servant.

The man’s expression betrayed his respect for the name, and for a person who had a telephone in his house—an unusual thing in New York. It was the sort of expression which the waiters at restaurants put on when they present to the diner a dish of terrapin or a canvas-back duck, or open a very particularly old bottle of very particularly fine wine—quite different from the stolid look they wear for beef and table-claret.

“Which Mr. Lauderdale?” asked Ralston, with a sudden frown. “Mr. Alexander Lauderdale Junior?”

“I don’t know, sir. The gentleman’s at the telephone, sir.”

This seemed to be added as a gentle hint not to keep any one of the name of Lauderdale waiting too long.

Ralston rose quickly, and Miner watched him as he passed out with long strides and a rather anxious face, wondering what could be the matter with his friend, and somehow connecting his refusal to drink with the summons to the instrument. Then Miner followed slowly in the same direction, with his hands in his pockets and his lips pursed as though he were about to whistle. He knew the man well enough to be aware that his refusal to drink might proceed from his having taken all he could stand for the present, and Ralston’s ill temper inclined Miner to believe that this might be the case. Ralston rarely betrayed himself at all, until he suddenly became viciously unmanageable, a fact which made him always the function of a doubtful quantity, as Miner, who had once learned a little mathematics, was fond of expressing it.

The little man was essentially sociable, and though he might want the very small and mild drink he was fond of ever so much, he preferred, if possible, to swallow it in company. Instead of ringing, therefore, he strolled away in search of another friend. As luck would have it, he almost ran against Walter Crowdie, who was coming towards him, but looking after Ralston, as the latter disappeared at the other end of the hall. Crowdie seemed excessively irritated about something.

“Confound that fellow!” he exclaimed, giving vent to his feelings as he turned and saw Miner close upon him.

“Who? Me?” enquired the little man, with a laugh. “Everybody’s purple with rage in this club to-day—I’m going home.”

“You? No—is that you, Frank? No—I mean that everlasting Ralston.”

“Oh! What’s he done to you? What’s the matter with Ralston?”

“Drunk again, I suppose,” answered Crowdie. “But I wish he’d keep out of my way when he is—runs into me, treads on both my feet—with his heels, I believe, though I don’t understand how that’s possible—pushes me out of the way and goes straight on without a word. Confound him, I say! You used to be able to swear beautifully, Frank—can’t you manage to say something?”

“At any other time—oh, yes! But you’d better get Ralston himself to do it for you. I’m not in it with him to-day. He’s been giving me the life to come—hot—and Abraham and Isaac and Lazarus and the rich man, and the glass of water, all in a breath. Go and ask him for what you want.”

“Oh—then he is drunk, is he?” asked Crowdie, with a disagreeable sneer on his red lips.

“I suppose so,” answered Miner, quite carelessly. “At all events, he refused to drink—that’s always a bad sign with him.”

“Of course—that makes it a certainty. Gad, though! It doesn’t make him light on his feet, if he happens to tread on yours. It serves me right for coming to the club at this time of day! Perdition on the fellow! I’ve got on new shoes, too!”

“What are you two squabbling about?” enquired Hamilton Bright, coming suddenly upon them out of the cloak-room.

“We’re not squabbling—we’re cursing Ralston,” answered Miner.

“I wish you’d go and look after him, Ham,” said Crowdie to his brother-in-law. “He’s just gone off there. He’s as drunk as the dickens, and swearing against everybody and treading on their toes in the most insolent way imaginable. Get him out of this, can’t you? Take him home—you’re his friend. If you don’t he’ll be smashing things before long.”

“Is he as bad as that, Frank?” asked Bright, gravely. “Where is he?”

“At the telephone—I don’t know—he trod on Crowdie’s feet and Crowdie’s perfectly wild and exaggerates. But there’s something wrong, I know. I think he’s not exactly screwed—but he’s screwed up—well, several pegs, by the way he acts. They call drinks ‘pegs’ somewhere, don’t they? I wanted to make a joke. I thought it might do Crowdie good—”

“Well, it’s a very bad one,” said Bright. “He’s at the telephone, you say?”

“Yes. The man said Mr. Lauderdale wanted to speak to him—he didn’t know which Mr. Lauderdale—but it’s probably Alexander the Safe, and if it is, there’s going to be a row over the wires. When Jack’s shut up there alone in the dark in the sound-proof box with the receiver under his nose and Alexander at the other end—if the wires don’t melt—that’s all! And Alexander’s a metallic sort of man—I should think he’d draw the lightning right down to his toes.”

At that moment Ralston came swinging down the hall at a great pace, pale and evidently under some sort of powerful excitement. He nodded carelessly to the three men as they stood together and disappeared into the cloak-room. Bright followed him, but Ralston, with his hat on, his head down and struggling into his overcoat, rushed out as Bright reached the door, and ran into the latter, precisely as he had run into Crowdie. Bright was by far the heavier man, however, and Ralston stumbled at the shock. Bright caught him by one arm and held him a moment.

“All right, Ham!” he exclaimed. “Everybody gets into my way to-day. Let go, man! I’m in a hurry!”

“Wait a bit,” said Bright. “I’ll come with you—”

“No—you can’t. Let me go, Ham! What the deuce are you holding me for?”

He shook Bright’s arm angrily, for between the message he had received and the obstacles he seemed to meet at every step, he was, by this time, very much excited. Bright thought he read certain well-known signs in his face, and believed that he had been drinking hard and might get into trouble if he went out alone, for Ralston was extremely quarrelsome at such times, and was quite capable of hitting out on the slightest provocation, and had been in trouble more than once for doing so, as Bright was well aware.

“I’m going with you, Jack, whether you like it or not,” said the latter, with mistaken firmness in his good intentions.

“You’re not, I can tell you!” answered Ralston, in a lower tone. “Just let me go—or there’ll be trouble here.”

He was furious at the delay, but Bright’s powerful hand did not relax its grasp on his arm.

“Jack, old man,” said Bright, in a coaxing tone, “just come upstairs for a quarter of an hour, and get quiet—”

“Oh—that’s it, is it? You think I’m screwed. I’m not. Let me go—once—twice—”

Ralston’s face was now white with anger. The

unjust accusation was the last drop. He was growing dangerous, but Bright, in the pride of his superior strength, still held him firmly.

“Take care!” said Ralston, almost in a whisper. “I’ve counted two.” He paused a full two seconds. “Three! There you go!”

The other men saw his foot glide forward like lightning over the marble pavement. Instantly Bright was thrown heavily on his back, and before he could even raise his head, Ralston was out of the door and in the street. Crowdie and Miner ran forward to help the fallen man, as they had not moved from where they had stood, a dozen paces away. But Bright was on his feet in an instant, pale with anger and with the severe shock of his fall. He turned his back on his companions at once, pretending to brush the dust from his coat by the bright light which fell through the glass door. Frank Miner stood near him, very quiet, his hands in his pockets, as usual, and a puzzled look in his face.

“Look here, Bright,” he said gravely, watching Bright’s back. “This sort of thing can’t go on, you know.”

Bright said nothing, but continued to dust himself, though there was not the least mark on his clothes.

“Upon my word,” observed Crowdie, walking slowly up and down in his ungraceful way, “I think we’d better call a meeting at once and have him requested to take his name off. If that isn’t conduct unbecoming a gentleman, I don’t know what is.”

“No,” said Miner. “That wouldn’t do. It would stick to him for life. All the same, Bright, this is a club—it isn’t a circus—and this sort of horse-play is just a little too much. Why don’t you turn round? There’s no dust on you—they keep the floor of the arena swept on purpose when Ralston’s about. But it’s got to stop—it’s got to stop right here.”

Bright’s big shoulders squared themselves all at once and he faced about, apparently quite cool again.

“I say,” he began, “did anybody see that but you two?” He looked up and down the deserted hall.

“No—wait a bit, though—halloa! Where are the hall servants? There ought to be two of them. They must have just gone off. There they are, on the other side of the staircase. Robert! And you—whatever your name is—come here!”

The two servants came forward at once. They had retired to show their discretion and at the same time to observe what happened, the moment they had seen Bright catch Ralston’s arm.

“Look here,” said Bright to them. “If you say anything about what you saw just now, you’ll have to go. Do you understand? As we shan’t speak of it, we shall know that you have, if it’s talked about. That’s all right—you can go now. I just wanted you to understand.”

The two servants bowed gravely. They respected Bright, and, like all servants, they worshiped Ralston. There was little fear of their indiscretion. Bright turned to Crowdie and Miner.

“If anybody has anything to say about this, I have,” he said. “I’m the injured person if any one is. And of course I shall say nothing, and I’ll beg you to say nothing either. Of course, if he ever falls foul of you, you’re free to do as you please, and of course you might, if you chose, bring this thing before the committee. But I know you won’t speak of it—either of you. We’ve all been screwed once or twice in our lives, I suppose. As for me, I’m his friend, and he didn’t know what he was doing. He’s a deuced good fellow at heart, but he’s infernally hasty when he’s had too much. That’s all right, isn’t it? I can trust you, can’t I?”

“Oh, yes, as far as I’m concerned,” said Crowdie, speaking first. “If you like that sort of thing, I’ve nothing to say. You’re quite big enough to take care of yourself. I hope Hester won’t hear it. She wouldn’t like the idea of her brother being knocked about without defending himself. I don’t particularly like it myself.”

“That’s nonsense, Walter, and you know it is,” answered Bright, curtly, and he turned to Miner with a look of enquiry.

“All right, Ham!” said the little man. “I’m not going to tell tales, if you aren’t. All the same—I don’t want to seem squeamish, and old-maid-ish, and a frump generally—but I don’t think I do remember just such a thing happening in any club I ever belonged to. Oh, well! Don’t let’s stand here talking ourselves black in the face. He’s gone, this time, and he’ll never find his way back if he once gets round the corner. You’ll hear to-morrow that he’s been polishing Tiffany’s best window with a policeman. That’s about his pressure when he gets a regular jag on. As for me, I’ve been trying to get somebody to have a drink with me for just three quarters of an hour, and so far my invitations have come back unopened. I suppose you won’t refuse a pilot’s two fingers after the battle, Ham?”

“What’s a pilot’s two fingers?” asked Bright. “I’ll accept your hospitality to that modest extent, anyhow. Show us.”

“It’s this,” said Miner, holding up his hand with the forefinger and little finger extended and the others turned in. “The little finger is the bottom,” he explained, “and you don’t count the others till you get to the forefinger, and just a little above the top of that you can see the whiskey. Understand? What will you have, Crowdie?”

“A drop of maraschino, thanks,” said the painter.

“Maraschino!” Miner made a wry face at the thought of the sugary stuff. “All right then, come in!”

They all went back together into the room in which Ralston and Miner had been sitting before the trouble began. Crowdie and his brother-in-law were not on very good terms. The former behaved well enough when they met, but Bright’s dislike for him was not to be concealed—which was strange, considering that Bright was a sensible and particularly self-possessed man, who was generally said to be of a gentle disposition, inclined to live harmoniously with his surroundings. He soon went away, leaving the artist and the man of letters to themselves. Miner did not like Crowdie very much either, but he admired him as an artist and had the faculty of making him talk.

If Ralston had really been drinking, he could not have been in a more excited state than when he left the club, leaving his best friend stretched on his back in the hall. He was half conscious of having done something which would be considered wholly outrageous among his associates, and among gentlemen at large. The fact that Bright was his distant cousin was hardly an excuse for tripping him up even in jest, and if the matter were to be taken in earnest, Bright’s superior strength would not excuse Ralston for using his own far superior skill and quickness, in the most brutal way, and on rather slender provocation. No one but he himself, however, even knew that he had been making a great effort to cure himself of a bad habit, and that although it was now Thursday, he had taken nothing stronger than a little weak wine and water and an occasional cup of coffee since Monday afternoon. Bright could therefore have no idea of the extent to which his accusation had wounded and exasperated the sensitive man—rendered ten times more sensitive than usual by his unwonted abstention.

Ralston, however, did not enter into any such elaborate consideration of the matter as he hurried along, too much excited just then to stop and look for a cab. He was still whole-heartedly angry with Bright, and was glad that he had thrown him, be the consequences what they might. If Bright would apologize for having laid rough hands on him, Ralston would do as much—not otherwise. If the thing were mentioned, he would leave the club and frequent another to which he belonged. Nothing could be simpler.

But he had received a much more violent impression than he fancied, and he forgot many things—forgetting even for a moment where he was going. Passing an up-town hotel on his way, he entered the bar by sheer force of habit—the habit of drinking something whenever his nerves were not quite steady. He ordered some whiskey, still thinking of Bright, and it was not until he had swallowed half of it that he realized what he was doing. With a half-suppressed oath he set down the liquor unfinished, dropped his money on the metal table and went out, more angry than ever.

Realizing that he was not exactly in a condition to talk quietly to any one, he turned into a side street, lit a strong cigar and walked more slowly for a few minutes, trying to collect his thoughts, and at last succeeding to a certain extent, aided perhaps by the tonic effect of the spoonful of alcohol he had swallowed.

The whole thing had begun in a very simple way—the gradual increase of tension from the early morning until towards evening had been produced by small incidents following upon the hasty marriage ceremony, which, as has been said, had produced a far deeper impression upon him than upon Katharine herself. The endless hours of waiting, the solitary luncheon, the waiting again, Katharine’s summary dismissal of him, almost without a word of explanation—then more waiting, and Miner’s tiresome questions, and the sudden call to the telephone, and stumbling against Crowdie—and all the rest of it. Small things, all of them, after the marriage itself, but able to produce at least a fit of extremely bad temper by their cumulative action upon such a character. Ralston was undoubtedly a dangerous man to exasperate at five o’clock on that Thursday afternoon.

He had been summoned by Robert Lauderdale himself, and this had contributed not a little to the haste which had brought him into collision with Bright. The old gentleman had asked him to come up to his house at once; John had said that he would come immediately, but on asking a further question he found the communication closed.

It immediately struck him that Katharine had not found uncle Robert at home in the morning, that she had very possibly gone to him again in the afternoon, and that they were perhaps together at that very moment, and had agreed to send for Ralston in order to talk matters over. It was natural enough, considering his strong desire to see Katharine before the ball, and his anxiety to hear Robert Lauderdale’s definite answer, upon which depended everything in the immediate present and future, that he should not have cared to waste time in exchanging civilities in the hall of the club with Bright, whom he saw almost every day, or with Crowdie, whom he detested. The rest has been explained.

Nor was it at all unnatural that the three men should all have been simultaneously deceived into believing that he had been drinking more than was good for him. A man who is known to drink habitually can hardly get credit for being sober when he is perfectly quiet—never, when he is in the least excited. Ralston had been more than excited. He had been violent. He had disgraced himself and the club by a piece of outrageous brutality. If any one but Bright had suffered by it, there would have been a meeting of the committee within twenty-four hours, and John Ralston’s name would have disappeared from the list of members forever. It was fortunate for him that Bright chanced to be his best friend.

Ralston scarcely realized how strongly the man was attached to him. Embittered as he was by being constantly regarded as the failure of the family, he could hardly believe that any one but his mother and Katharine cared what became of him. A young man who has wasted three or four years in fruitless, if not very terrible, dissipation, whose nerves are a trifle affected by habits as yet by no means incurable, and who has had the word ‘failure’ daily branded upon him by his discriminating relatives, easily believes that for him life is over, and that he can never redeem the time lost—for he is constantly reminded of this by persons who should know better. And if he is somewhat melancholic by nature, he is very ready to think that the future holds but two possibilities,—the love of woman so long as it may last, and an easy death of some sort when there is no more love. That was approximately John Ralston’s state of mind as he ascended the steps of Robert Lauderdale’s house on that Thursday afternoon.

CHAPTER XIX.

Ralston shook himself and stamped his feet softly upon the rug as he took off his overcoat in the hall of Robert Lauderdale’s house. He was conscious that he was nervous and tried to restore the balance of forces by a physical effort, but he was not very successful. The man went before him and ushered him into the same room in which Katharine had been received that morning. The windows were already shut, and several shaded lamps shed a soft light upon the bookcases, the great desk and the solid central figure of the great man. Ralston had not passed the threshold before he was conscious that Katharine was not present, as he had hoped that she might be. His excitement gave place once more to the cold sensation of something infinitely disappointing, as he took the old gentleman’s hand and then sat down in a stiff, high-backed chair opposite to him—to be ‘looked over,’ he said to himself.

“So you’re married,” said Robert Lauderdale, abruptly opening the conversation.

“Then you’ve seen Katharine,” answered the young man. “I wasn’t sure you had.”

“Hasn’t she told you?”

“No. I was to have seen her this afternoon, but—she couldn’t do more than tell me that she would talk it all over this evening.”

“Oh!” ejaculated the old man. “That rather alters the case.”

“How?” enquired Ralston, whose bad temper made him instinctively choose to understand as little as possible of what was said.

“Well, in this way, my dear boy. Katharine and I had a long interview this morning, and as I supposed you must have met before now, I naturally thought she had explained things to you.”

“What things?” asked Ralston, doggedly.

“Oh, well! If I’ve got to go through the whole affair again—” The old man stopped abruptly and tapped the table with his big fingers, looking across the room at one of the lamps.

“I don’t think that will be necessary,” said Ralston. “If you’ll tell me why you sent for me that will be quite enough.”

Robert Lauderdale looked at him in some surprise, for the tone of his voice sounded unaccountably hostile.

“I didn’t ask you to come for the sake of quarrelling with you, Jack,” he replied.

“No. I didn’t suppose so.”

“But you seem to be in a confoundedly bad temper all the same,” observed the old gentleman, and his bushy eyebrows moved oddly above his bright old eyes.

“Am I? I didn’t know it.” Ralston sat very quietly in his chair, holding his hat on his knees, but looking steadily at Mr. Lauderdale.

The latter suddenly sniffed the air discontentedly, and frowned.

“It’s those abominable cocktails you’re always drinking, Jack,” he said.

“I’ve not been drinking any,” answered Ralston, momentarily forgetting the forgetfulness which had so angered him ten minutes earlier.

“Nonsense!” cried the old man, angrily. “Do you think that I’m in my dotage, Jack? It’s whiskey. I can smell it!”

“Oh!” Ralston paused. “It’s true—on my way here, I began to drink something and then put it down.”

“Hm!” Robert Lauderdale snorted and looked at him. “It’s none of my business how many cocktails you drink, I suppose—and it’s natural that you should wish to celebrate the wedding day. Might drink wine, though, like a gentleman,” he added audibly.

Again Ralston felt that sharp thrust of pain which a man feels under a wholly unjust accusation brought against him when he has been doing his best and has more than partially succeeded. The fiery temper—barely under control when he had entered the house—broke out again.

“If you’ve sent for me to lecture me on my habits, I shall go,” he said, moving as though about to rise.

“I didn’t,” answered the old gentleman, with flashing eyes. “I asked you to come here on a matter of business—and you’ve come smelling of whiskey and flying into a passion at everything I say—and I tell you—pah! I can smell it here!”

He took a cigar from the table and lit it hastily. Meanwhile Ralston rose to his feet. He evidently had no intention of quarrelling with his uncle unnecessarily, but the repeated insult stung him past endurance. The old man looked up, with the cigar between his teeth, and still holding the match at the end of it. With the other hand he took a bit of paper from the table and held it out towards Ralston.

“That’s what I sent for you about,” he said.

Ralston turned suddenly and faced him.

“What is it?” he asked sharply.