KATHARINE LAUDERDALE
[Illustration: colophon]
[Illustration: F. Marion Crawford with signature.]
KATHARINE LAUDERDALE
BY
F. MARION CRAWFORD
AUTHOR OF “SARACINESCA,” “PIETRO GHISLERI,” ETC.
VOL. I
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.
PAGE
CHAPTER I. 1
CHAPTER II. 25
CHAPTER III. 47
CHAPTER IV. 69
CHAPTER V. 92
CHAPTER VI. 113
CHAPTER VII. 137
CHAPTER VIII. 159
CHAPTER IX. 182
CHAPTER X. 200
CHAPTER XI. 223
CHAPTER XII. 244
CHAPTER XIII. 266
CHAPTER XIV. 288
CHAPTER XV. 312
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
VOL. I.
PAGE
“A place probably unique in the world” 10
“She rose suddenly and pretended to busy herself with the single light” 79
“‘What have you decided?’ she enquired” 203
“‘Kitty--don’t do what I’ve done,’ she said earnestly” 257
KATHERINE LAUDERDALE.
CHAPTER I.
“I prefer the dark style, myself--like my cousin,” said John Ralston,
thoughtfully.
“And you will therefore naturally marry a fair woman,” answered his
companion, Hamilton Bright, stopping to look at the display in a
florist’s window. Ralston stood still beside him.
“Queer things--orchids,” he observed.
“Why?” Nothing in the world seemed queer or unnatural to Bright, who was
normally constituted in all respects, and had accepted the universe
without comment.
“I am not sure why. I think the soul must look like an orchid.”
“You are as bad as a Boston girl,” laughed Bright. “Always thinking of
your soul! Why should the soul be like an orchid, any more than like a
banana or a turnip?”
“It must be like something,” said Ralston, in explanation.
“If it’s anything, it’s faith in a gaseous state, my dear man, and
therefore even less visible and less like anything than the common or
market faith, so to say--the kind you get at from ten cents to a dollar
the seat’s worth, on Sundays, according to the charge at the particular
place of worship your craving for salvation leads you to frequent.”
“I prefer to take mine in a more portable shape,” answered Ralston,
grimly. “By the bottle--not by the seat--and very dry.”
“Yes--if you go on, you’ll get one sort of faith--the lively evidence of
things unseen--snakes, for instance.”
Bright laughed again as he spoke, but he glanced at his friend with a
look of interest which had some anxiety in it. John Ralston was said to
drink, and Bright was his good angel, ever striving to be entertained
unawares, and laughing when he was found out in his good intentions. But
if Bright was a very normal being, Ralston was a very abnormal one, and
was, to some extent, a weak man, though not easily influenced by strong
men. A glance at his face would have convinced any one of that--a keen,
nervous, dark face, with those deep lines from the nostrils to the
corners of the mouth which denote uncertain, and even dangerous
tempers--a square, bony jaw, aggressive rather than firm, but not
coarse--the nose, aquiline but delicate--the eyes, brown, restless, and
bright, the prominence of the temples concealing the eyelids entirely
when raised--the forehead, broad, high, and visibly lean like all the
features--the hair, black and straight--the cheek bones, moderately
prominent. Possibly John Ralston had a dash of the Indian in his
physical inheritance, which showed itself, as it almost always does, in
a melancholic disposition, great endurance and an unnatural love of
excitement in almost any shape, together with an inborn idleness which
it was hard to overcome.
Nothing is more difficult than to convey by words what should be
understood by actual seeing. There are about fifteen hundred million
human beings alive to-day, no two of whom are exactly alike, and we have
really but a few hundreds of words with which to describe any human
being at all. The argument that a few octaves of notes furnish all the
music there is, cannot be brought against us as a reproach. We cannot
speak a dozen words at once and produce a single impression, any more
than we can put the noun before the article as we may strike any one
note before or after another. So I have made acknowledgment of inability
to do the impossible, and apology for not being superhuman.
John Ralston was dark, good-looking, nervous, excitable, enduring, and
decidedly dissipated, at the age of five and twenty years, which he had
lately attained at the time of the present tale. Of his other gifts,
peculiarities and failings, his speech, conversation and actions will
give an account. As for his position in life, he was the only son of
Katharine Ralston, widow of Admiral Ralston of the United States Navy,
who had been dead several years.
Mrs. Ralston’s maiden name had been Lauderdale, and she was of Scotch
descent. Her cousin, Alexander Lauderdale, married a Miss Camperdown, a
Roman Catholic girl of a Kentucky family, and had two children, both
daughters, the elder of whom was Mrs. Benjamin Slayback, wife of the
well-known member of Congress. The younger was Katharine Lauderdale,
named after her father’s cousin, Mrs. Ralston, and she was the dark
cousin whom John admired.
Hamilton Bright was a distant relative to both of these persons. But by
his father’s side he had not originally belonged to New York, as the
others did, but had settled there after spending some years of his early
youth in California and Nevada, and had gone into business. At four and
thirty he was the junior partner in the important firm of Beman Brothers
and Company, Bankers, who had a magnificent building of their own in
Broad Street, and were very solidly prosperous, having shown themselves
to be among the fittest to survive the financial storms of the last
half century. Ralston’s friend was a strong, squarely built, very fair
man, of what is generally called the Saxon type. At first sight, he
inspired confidence, and his clear blue eyes were steady and true. He
had that faculty of looking almost superhumanly neat and spotless under
all circumstances, which is the prerogative of men with straight, flaxen
hair, pink and white complexions, and perfect teeth. It was easy to
predict that he would become too stout with advancing years, and he was
already a heavy man, though not more than half an inch taller than his
friend and distant cousin, John Ralston. But no one would have believed
at first sight that he was nine years older than the latter.
The nature of friendship between men has been almost as much discussed
as that of love between man and woman, but with very different results.
He laughs at the idea of friendship who turns a little pale at the
memory of love. At all events, most of us feel that friendship is
generally a less certain and undeniable thing, inasmuch as it is harder
to exclude from it the element of personal interest and advantage. The
fact probably is, that no one person can possibly combine all the
elements supposed to make up what every one means by friendship. It
would be far more reasonable to construct one friendship out of many
persons, securing in each of them one at least of the qualities
necessary. For instance, the discreet man, to whom it is safe to tell
secrets when they must be told at all, is not as a matter of course the
man most capable of giving the best advice; nor, if a certain individual
is extremely generous and ready to lend all he has to his friend, does
it follow that he possesses the tough, manly nature that will face
public scorn rather than abandon that friend in his hour of need. Some
men, too, want sympathy in their troubles, and will have it, even at the
cost of common sense. Others need encouragement; others, again, need
most of all to be told the unpleasant truth about themselves in the most
pleasant form practicable. Altogether it seems probable that the ideal
friend must either be an altogether superhuman personage, or a failure
in so far as his own life is concerned.
Hamilton Bright approached as nearly to that ideal as his humanity would
allow. He did not in the least trouble himself to find out why he liked
Ralston, and wished to be of service to him, and he wisely asked for
nothing whatever in return for what he gave. But he was very far from
looking up to him, and perhaps even from respecting him as he wished
that he might. He simply liked him better than other men, and stood by
him when he needed help, which often happened.
They left the florist’s window and walked slowly up Fifth Avenue. John
Ralston was a born New Yorker and preferred his own city to any other
place in the world with that solid, satisfactory, unreasoning prejudice
which belongs especially to New Yorkers and Parisians, and of which it
is useless to attempt any explanation. Hamilton Bright, on the contrary,
often wished himself away, and in spite of his excessively correct
appearance even the easy formality of American metropolitan life was
irksome to him. He had loved the West, and in the midst of great
interests and advantages, he regretted his former existence and daily
longed for the clearer air and bolder breath of Nevada. The only objects
about which he ever displayed much enthusiasm were silver and cattle,
about which Ralston knew nothing and cared less.
“When is it to be?” asked Bright after a long silence.
Ralston looked at him quickly.
“What?” he asked in a short tone.
Bright did not answer at once, and when he spoke his voice was rather
dull and low.
“When are you going to be married? Everybody knows that you are
engaged.”
“Then everybody is wrong. I am not engaged.”
“Oh--I thought you were. All right.”
Another pause followed and they walked on.
“Alexander Junior said I was a failure,” observed Ralston at last. “That
was some time ago.”
“Oh--was that the trouble?”
Bright did not seem to expect any reply to the question, but his tone
was thoughtful.
“Yes,” answered Ralston, with a short, discontented laugh. “He said that
I was of no use whatever, that I never did anything and never should.”
“That settled it, I suppose.”
“Yes. That settled it. There was nothing more to be said--on his side,
at least.”
“And how about your side?”
“We shall see.”
Ralston shut his lips viciously and his clean-cut, prominent chin looked
determined enough.
“The fact is,” said his friend, “that Alexander Junior was not so
awfully far wrong--about the past, at all events. You never did anything
in your life except make yourself agreeable. And you don’t seem to have
succeeded in that with him.”
“Oh, he used to think me agreeable enough,” laughed the younger man. “He
used to play billiards with me by the month for his liver, and then call
me idle for playing with him. I suppose that if I had given up billiards
he would have been impressed with the idea that I was about to reform.
It wouldn’t have cost me much. I hated the stupid game and only played
to amuse him.”
“All the same--I wish I had your chances--I mean, I wish I may have as
good a chance as you, when I think of getting married.”
“My chances!” Ralston did not smile now, and his tone was harsh as he
repeated the words. He glanced at his companion. “When will that be?” he
asked after a moment’s pause. “Why don’t you get married, Ham? I’ve
often wondered. But then--you’re so cursedly reasonable about
everything! I suppose you’ll stick to the single ticket as long as you
have strength to resist, and then you’ll marry a nurse. Wise man!”
“Thank you. You’re as encouraging as usual.”
“You don’t need encouragement a bit, old man. You’re so full of it
anyhow, that you can spare a lot for other people. You have a deuced
good effect on my liver, Ham. Do you know it? You ought to look
pleased.”
“Oh, yes. I am. I only wish the encouragement might last a little
longer.”
“I can’t help being gloomy sometimes--rather often, I ought to say. I
fancy I’m a born undertaker, or something to do with funerals. I’ve
tried a lot of other things for a few days and failed--I think I’ll try
that. By the by, I’m very thirsty and here’s the Hoffman House.”
“It’s not far to the club, if you want to drink,” observed Bright,
stopping on the pavement.
“You needn’t come in, if you think it’s damaging to your reputation,”
answered Ralston.
“My reputation would stand a good deal of knocking about,” laughed
Bright. “I think my character would bear three nights a week in a
Bowery saloon and spare time put in now and then in a University Place
bar, without any particular harm.”
“By Jove! I wish mine would!”
“It won’t,” said Bright. “But I wasn’t thinking of your reputation, nor
of anything especial except that things are generally better at a club
than at a hotel.”
“The Brut is good here. I’ve tried it--often. Come along.”
“I’ll wait for you outside. I’m not thirsty.”
“I told you so,” retorted Ralston. “You’re afraid somebody will see
you.”
“You’re an idiot, Jack!”
Thereupon Bright led the way into the gorgeous bar, a place probably
unique in the world. A number of pictures by great French masters hang
on the walls--pictures unrivalled, perhaps, in beauty of execution and
insolence of conception. The rest is a blaze of polished marble and
woodwork and gleaming metal.
Ralston nodded to the bar-tender.
“What will you have?” he asked, turning to Bright.
“Nothing, thanks. I’m not thirsty.”
“Oh--all right,” answered Ralston discontentedly. “I’ll have a pint of
Irroy Brut with a bit of lemon peel in it. Champagne isn’t wine--it’s
[Illustration: “A place probably unique in the world.”--Vol. I., p.
10.]
only a beverage,” he added, turning to Bright as though to explain his
reasons for wanting so much.
“I quite agree with you,” said Bright, lighting a cigar. “Champagne
isn’t wine, and it’s not fit to drink at the best. Either give me wine
that is wine, or give me whiskey.”
“Whichever you like.”
“Did you say whiskey, sir?” enquired the bar-tender, who was in the act
of rubbing the rim of a pint glass with a lemon peel.
“Nothing, thank you. I’m not thirsty,” answered Bright a third time.
“Hallo, Bright, my little man! What are you doing here? Oh--Jack
Ralston--I see.”
The speaker was a very minute and cheerful specimen of human New York
club life,--pink-cheeked, black-eyed, neat and brisk, not more than five
feet six inches in height, round as a little barrel, with tiny hands and
feet. He watched Ralston, as soon as he noticed him. The bar-tender had
emptied the pint bottle of champagne into the glass and Ralston had set
it to his lips with the evident intention of finishing it at a draught.
“Hold on, Jack!” cried Frank Miner, the small man. “I say--easy there!
You’ll have apoplexy or something--I say--”
“Don’t speak to a man on his drink, Frank,” said Bright, calmly. “When I
drove cattle in the Nacimiento Valley we used to shoot for that.”
“I shall avoid that place,” answered Miner.
Ralston drew a long breath as he set down the empty glass.
“I wanted that,” he said, half to himself. “Hallo, Frank--is that you?
What will you have?”
“Nothing--now--thank you,” answered Miner. “I’ve satisfied my thirst and
cured my tendency to vice by seeing you take that down. You’re a
beautiful sight and an awful example for a thirsty man. Get
photographed, Jack--they could sell lots of copies at temperance
meetings. Heard the story about the temperance tracts? Stop me if you
have. Man went out to sell teetotal tracts in Missouri. Came back and
his friends were surprised to see him alive. ‘Never had such a good time
in my life,’ said he. ‘Every man to whom I offered a tract pulled out a
pistol and said, “Drink or I’ll shoot.” And here I am.’ There’s a chance
for you, Jack, when you get stuck.”
Bright and Ralston laughed at the little man’s story and all three
turned and left the bar-room together.
“Seen the old gentleman lately?” enquired Frank Miner, as they came out
upon the pavement.
“Do you mean uncle Robert?” asked Bright.
“Yes--cousin Robert, as we call him.”
“It always amuses me to hear a little chap like you calling that old
giant ‘cousin,’” said Bright.
“He likes it. It makes him feel frisky. Besides, he is a sort of cousin.
My uncle Thompson married Margaret Lauderdale--”
“Oh, yes--I know all about the genealogy,” laughed Bright.
“Who was Robert Lauderdale’s own cousin,” continued Miner. “And as
Robert Lauderdale is your great-uncle and Jack Ralston’s great-uncle,
that makes you second cousins to each other and makes me your--let me
see--both--”
“Shut up, Frank!” exclaimed Ralston. “You’ve got it all wrong again.
Uncle Robert isn’t Bright’s great-uncle. He’s first cousin to your
deceased aunt Margaret, who was Bright’s grandmother, and you’re first
cousin to his mother and first cousin, once removed, to him; and he’s my
third cousin and you’re no relation to me at all, except by your uncle’s
marriage, and if you want to know anything more about it you have your
choice between the family Bible and the Bloomingdale insane
asylum--which is a quiet, healthy place, well situated.”
“Well then, what relation am I to my cousin Robert?” asked Miner, with a
grin.
“An imaginary relation, my dear boy.”
“Oh, I say! And his being my very own aunt by marriage’s own cousin is
not to count for anything, because you two are such big devils and I am
only a light weight, and you could polish your boots with me if I made
a fuss! It’s too bad! Upon my word, brute force rules society as much as
it ever did in the middle ages. So there goes my long-cherished claim
upon a rich relation. However, you’ve destroyed the illusion so often
before that I know how to resurrect it.”
“For that matter,” said Bright, “the fact is about as illusory as the
illusion itself. If you insist upon being considered as one of the
Lauderdale tribe, we’re glad to have you on your own merits--but you’ll
get nothing out of it but the glory--”
“I know. It gives me a fictitious air of respectability to be one of
you. Besides, you should be proud to have a man of letters--”
“Say an author at once,” suggested Ralston.
“No. I’m honest, if I’m anything,--which is doubtful. A man of letters,
I say, can be useful in a family. Suppose, for instance, that Jack
invented an electric street-dog, or--”
“What?” enquired Ralston, with a show of interest. “An electric what?”
“I was only thinking of something new,” said Miner, thoughtfully.
“I thought you said, an electric street-dog--”
“I did--yes. Something of that sort, just for illustration. I believe
they had one at Chicago, with an india-rubber puppy,--at least, if they
didn’t, they ought to have had it,--but anything of the kind would
do--self-drying champagne--anything! Suppose that Jack invented
something useful like that, I could write it up in the papers, and get
up advertisements for it, and help the family to get rich.”
“Is that the sort of literature you cultivate?” asked Bright.
“Oh, no! Much more flowery--quite like the flowers of the field in some
ways, for it cometh up--to the editor’s office--in the morning, and in
the evening, if not sooner, it is cut down--by the editor--dried up, and
withered, or otherwise disposed of, so that it cannot be said to reach
the general public.”
“Not very paying, I should think.”
“Well--not to me. But of course, if there were not so much of it offered
to the magazines and papers, there wouldn’t be so many people employed
by them to read and reject articles. So somebody gets a living out of
it. I console myself with the certainty that my efforts help to keep at
least one man in every office from starvation. I spoke to cousin Robert
about it and he seemed rather pleased by the idea, and said that he
would mention it to his brother, old Mr. Alexander, who’s a
philanthropist--”
“Call him cousin Alexander,” suggested Ralston. “Why do you make any
distinction?”
“Because he’s not the rich one,” answered Miner, imperturbably. “He’ll
be promoted to be my cousin, if the fortune is left to him.”
“Then I’m afraid he’ll continue to languish among your non-cousin
acquaintances.”
“Why shouldn’t he inherit the bulk of the property?” enquired Miner,
speaking more seriously.
“Because he’s a philanthropist, and would spend it all on idiots and
‘fresh air funds,’ and things of that sort.”
“There is Alexander Junior,” suggested Miner. “He’s careful enough, I’m
sure. I suppose it will go to him.”
“I doubt that, too,” said Bright. “Alexander Junior goes to the opposite
extreme. However, Jack knows more about that than I do--and is a nearer
relation, besides.”
“Ham is right,” answered John Ralston, thoughtfully. “Cousin Sandy is
the most villainous, infernal, steel-trap-fingered, patent-locked old
miser that ever sat down in a cellar chinking money bags.”
“There’s a certain force about your language,” observed Miner.
“I believe he’s not rich,” said Bright. “So he has an excuse.”
“Poor!” exclaimed Ralston, contemptuously. “I’m poor.”
“I wish I were, then--in your way,” returned Miner. “That was Irroy
Brut, I noticed. It looked awfully good. It’s true that you haven’t two
daughters, as your cousin Sandy has.”
“Nor a millionaire son-in-law--like Ben Slayback,--Slayback of Nevada he
is, in the Congressional Record, because there’s another from somewhere
else.”
“He wears a green tie,” said Miner, softly. “I saw him two years ago,
before he and Charlotte were married.”
“I know,” answered Ralston. “Cousin Katharine hates him, I believe.
Uncle Robert will probably leave the whole fortune in trust for
Slayback’s children. There’s a little boy. They say he has red hair,
like his father, and they have christened him Alexander--merely as an
expression of hope. It would be just like uncle Robert.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Bright. “But as for Slayback, don’t abuse him
till you know him better. I knew him out West, years ago. He’s a brick.”
“He is precisely the colour of one,” retorted Ralston.
“Don’t be spiteful, Jack.”
“I’m not spiteful. I daresay he’s full of virtue, as all horrid people
are--inside. The outside of him is one of nature’s finest failures, and
his manners are awful always--and worse when he tries to polish them for
the evening. He’s a corker, a thing to scare sharks with--it doesn’t
follow that he’s been a train-wrecker or a defaulting cashier, and I
didn’t say it did. Oh, yes--I know--handsome is that puts its hand into
its pocket, and that sort of thing. Give me some soda water with a
proverb in it--that confounded Irroy wasn’t dry enough.”
Frank Miner looked up into Bright’s eyes and smiled surreptitiously. He
was walking between his two taller companions. Bright glanced at
Ralston’s lean, nervous face, and saw that the lines of ill-temper had
deepened during the last quarter of an hour. It was not probable that a
pint of wine could alone have any perceptible effect on the man’s head,
but it was impossible to know what potations had preceded the draught.
“No,” said Bright. “Such speeches as that are not spiteful. They’re
foolish. Besides, Slayback’s a friend of mine.”
Miner looked up again, but in surprise. Ralston turned sharply on
Bright.
“I say, Ham--” he began.
“All right, Jack,” Bright interrupted, striding steadily along. “We’re
not going to quarrel. Stand up for your friends, and I’ll stand up for
mine. That’s all.”
“I haven’t any,” answered Ralston, growing suddenly gloomy again.
“Oh! Well--so much the better for you, then.”
For a few moments no one spoke again. Miner broke the silence. He was a
cheerful little soul, and hated anything like an unpleasant situation.
“Heard about the cow and the collar-stud, Jack?” he enquired, by way of
coming to the rescue.
“Chestnut!” growled Ralston.
“Of course,” answered Miner, who was nevertheless convinced that Ralston
had not heard the joke. “I wasn’t going to tell it. It only struck me
just then.”
“Why?” asked Bright, who failed to see any connection between a cow, a
stud and Ralston’s bad humour.
“The trouble with you, Bright, is that you’re so painfully literal,”
returned Miner, who had got himself into a conversational difficulty.
“Now I was thinking of a figurative cow.”
“What has that to do with it?” enquired Bright, inexorably.
“It’s very simple, I’m sure. Isn’t it, Jack?”
“Perfectly,” answered Ralston, absently, as he watched a figure that
attracted his attention fifty yards ahead of him.
“There!” exclaimed Miner, triumphantly. “Jack saw it at once. Of course,
if you want me to explain anything so perfectly idiotic--”
“Oh, don’t bother, I’m stupid to-day,” said Bright, completely
mystified.
“What’s the joke, anyhow?” asked Ralston, suddenly realizing that Miner
had spoken to him. “I said I understood, but I didn’t, in the least. I
was thinking about that--about Slayback--and then I saw somebody I knew,
and I didn’t hear what you said.”
“You didn’t lose much,” answered Miner. “I should be sincerely grateful
if you’d drop the subject, which is a painful one with me. If anything
can touch me to the quick, it’s the horrible certainty that I’ve pulled
the trigger and that the joke hasn’t gone off, not even flashed in the
pan, or fizzled, or sputtered and petered out, or even raised itself to
the level of a decent failure, fit for immediate burial if for nothing
else.”
“You’re getting a little mixed in your similes, Frank,” observed Bright.
“The last one reminds me of what Bright and I were talking of before you
joined us, Frank,” said Ralston.
“Burial?”
“The next thing before it--undertakers. I’m thinking of becoming one.
Bright says it’s the only thing I’ve not tried, and that as I have the
elements of success in my character, I must necessarily succeed in that.
There’s a large establishment of the kind in Sixth Avenue, not far from
here. I think I’ll call and see a member of the firm.”
“All right,” assented Miner, with a laugh. “Take me in with you as
epitaph-writer. I’ll treat your bodies to a display of the English
language that will make them sit up.”
“I believe you could!” exclaimed Bright, with a laugh.
Ralston turned to the left, into Thirty-second Street. His companions,
quite indifferent as to the direction they took, followed his lead.
“I’m going to do it, Ham, you know,” said Ralston, as they walked along.
“What?”
“I’m going to the undertaker’s in Sixth Avenue.”
“All right--if you think it amusing.”
“We’ll all go. It’s appropriate to go as a body, if one goes there at
all.”
“Frank,” said Bright, gravely, “be funny if you can. Be ghastly if you
like. But if you make puns, make them at a man of your own size. It’s
safer.”
The little man chirped pleasantly in answer, as he trotted along between
the two. He believed, innocently enough, that Bright and Ralston had
been at the point of a quarrel, and that he had saved the situation with
his nonsense.
At the end of the street, where it makes a corner with Broadway, stands
a big hotel. Ralston glanced at the door on Thirty-second Street, which
is the ladies’ entrance, and stopped in his walk.
“I want to leave a card on some people at the Imperial,” he said. “I’ll
be back in a moment.” And he disappeared within.
Bright and Miner stood waiting outside.
“Do you believe that--about leaving a card?” asked Miner, after a pause.
“I don’t know,” answered Bright.
“Because I think he’s got the beginning of a ‘jag’ on him now. He’s gone
in for something short to settle that long drink. Pity, isn’t it?”
Bright did not answer at once.
“I say, Frank,” he said at last, “don’t talk about Jack’s
drinking--there’s a good fellow. He’ll get over it all right, some day.”
“People do talk about it a good deal,” answered Miner. “I don’t think
I’m worse than other people, and I’ll try to talk less. But it’s been
pretty bad, lately. The trouble is, you can’t tell just how far gone he
is. He has a strong head--up to a certain point, and then he’s a fiend,
all at once. And he’s always quarrelsome, even when he’s sober, so
that’s no sign.”
“Poor chap! He inherits it to some extent. His father could drink more
than most men, and generally did.”
“Yes. I met a man the other day--a fellow in the Navy--who told me they
had no end of stories of the old Admiral. But no one ever saw him the
worse for it.”
“That’s true enough. But no nerves will last through two generations of
whiskey.”
“I suppose not.” Miner paused. “You see,” he continued, presently, “he
could have left his card in half the time he’s been in there. Come in.
We shall find him at the bar.”
“No,” said Bright. “I won’t spy on him. I shouldn’t like it myself.”
“And he says he has no friends!” exclaimed Miner, not without
admiration.
“Oh, that’s only his way when he’s cross. Not that his friends are of
any use to him. He’ll have to work out his own salvation alone--or his
own damnation, poor devil!”
Before Miner made any answer, Ralston came out again. His face looked
drawn and weary and there were dark shadows under his eyes. He stood
still a moment on the threshold of the door, looked deliberately to the
left, towards Broadway, then to the right, along the street, and at last
at his friends. Then he slowly lighted a cigarette, brushed a tiny
particle of ash from the sleeve of his rough black coat and came out
upon the pavement, with a quick, decided step.
“Now then, I’m ready for the undertaker,” he said, with a sour smile.
“Sorry to have kept you waiting so long,” he added, as though by an
afterthought.
“Not a bit,” answered Miner, cheerfully.
Bright said nothing, and his quiet, healthy face expressed nothing. But
as they went towards the crossing of Broadway, he was walking beside
Ralston, instead of letting little Frank Miner keep his place in the
middle.