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.
“Take it, and see.”
“If it’s money, I won’t touch it,” Ralston answered, beginning to grow
pale, for he saw that it was a cheque, and it seemed just then like a
worse insult than the first.
“It’s not for you. It’s a matter of business. Take it!”
Ralston shifted his hat into his left hand and took the cheque in his
right, and glanced at it. It was drawn in favour of Katharine Lauderdale
for one hundred thousand dollars. He laughed in the old man’s face,
being very angry.
“It’s a curiosity, at all events,” he said with contempt, laying it on
the table.
“What do you mean?” cried his uncle, growing redder as Ralston turned
white.
“There is no Katharine Lauderdale, in the first place,” answered the
young man. “The thing isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. If it were
worth money, I’d tear it up--if it were for a million.”
“Oh--would you?” The old gentleman looked at Ralston with a sort of
fierce, contemptuous unbelief.
“Yes--I would. So would Katharine. I daresay she told you so.”
Robert Lauderdale bit his cigar savagely. It was a little too much to be
browbeaten by a mere boy, when he had been used to commanding all his
life. Whether he understood Ralston, or whether he completely lost his
head, was never clear to either of them, then, or afterwards. He took a
fresh cheque and filled it in carefully. His face was scarlet now, and
his sandy eyebrows were knitted angrily together. When he had done, he
scrutinized the order closely, and then laid it upon the end of the desk
under Ralston’s eyes.
‘Pay to the order of John Ralston one million dollars, Robert
Lauderdale.’
Ralston glanced at the writing without touching the paper, and
involuntarily his eyes were fascinated by it for a moment. There was
nothing wrong about the cheque this time.
In the instant during which he looked at it, as it lay there, the
temptation to take it was hardly perceptible to him. He knew it was
real, and yet it did not look real. In the progress of his increasing
anger there was a momentary pause. The exceeding magnitude of the figure
arrested his attention and diverted his thoughts. He had never seen a
cheque for a million of dollars before, and he could not help looking at
it, for its own sake.
“That’s a curiosity, too,” he said, almost unconsciously. “I never saw
one.”
A moment later he set down his hat, took the slip of paper and tore it
across, doubled it and tore it again, and mechanically looked for the
waste-paper basket. Robert Lauderdale watched him, not without an
anxiety of which he was ashamed, for he had realized the stupendous risk
into which his anger had led him as soon as he had laid the cheque on
the desk, but had been too proud to take it back. He would not have been
Robert the Rich if he had often been tempted to such folly, but the
young man’s manner had exasperated him beyond measure.
“That was a million of dollars,” he said, in an odd voice, as the shreds
fell into the basket.
“I suppose so,” answered Ralston, with a sneer, as he took his hat
again. “You could have drawn it for fifty millions, I daresay, if you
had chosen. It’s lucky you do that sort of thing in the family.”
“You’re either tipsy--or you’re a better man than I took you for,” said
Robert Lauderdale, slowly regaining his composure.
“You’ve suggested already that I am probably drunk,” answered Ralston,
brutally. “I’ll leave you to consider the matter. Good evening.”
He went towards the door. Old Lauderdale looked after him a moment and
then rose, heavily, as big old men do.
“Jack! Come back! Don’t be a fool, my boy!”
“I’m not,” replied the young man. “The wisest thing I can do is to
go--and I’m going.” He laid hold of the handle of the door. “It’s of no
use for me to stay,” he said. “We shall come to blows if this goes on.”
His uncle came towards him as he stood there. Hamilton Bright was more
like him in size and figure than any of the other Lauderdales.
“I don’t want you to go just yet, Jack,” he said, more kindly than he
had spoken yet, and laying his hand on Ralston’s arm very much as Bright
had done in the club.
Ralston shrank from his touch, not because he was in the least afraid
of being violent with an old man, but because the mere thought of such a
thing offended his sense of honour, and the position in which the two
were standing reminded him of what had happened but a short time
previously.
“Just tell me one thing, my dear boy,” began Robert Lauderdale, whose
short fits of anger were always succeeded immediately by a burst of
sunshiny good humour. “I want to know what induced you to go and marry
Katharine in that way?”
Ralston drew back still further, trying to avoid his touch. It was
utterly impossible for him to answer that he had very reluctantly
yielded to Katharine’s own entreaties. Nor was his anger by any means as
transient as the old man’s.
“I entirely refuse to discuss the matter,” he said, and paused. “Do you
want a plain statement?” he asked, a moment later. “Very well. It was
understood that Katharine was to tell you about the marriage, and she
has done so. You’re the head of the family, and you have a right to
know. If I ever had any intention of asking anything of you, it
certainly wasn’t money. And I’ve asked nothing. Possibly, just now, you
meant to be generous. It struck me in rather a different light. I
thought it was pretty clear, in the first place, that you took me for
the sort of man who would be willing to live on his wife’s money, if
she had any. If you meant to give her the money, there was no reason for
putting the cheque into my hands--nor for writing a cheque at all. You
could, and you naturally should, have written a note to Beman to place
the sum to her credit. That was a mere comedy, to see what I would
do--to try me, as I suppose you said to yourself. Thank you. I never
offered myself to be a subject for your experiments. As for the cheque
for a million--that was pure farce. You were so angry that you didn’t
know what you were doing, and then your fright--yes, your fright--calmed
you again. But there’s no harm done. You saw me throw it into the
waste-paper basket. That’s all, I think. As you seem to think I’m not
sober, you may as well let me take myself off. But if I’m drunk--well,
don’t try any of those silly experiments on men who aren’t. You’ll get
caught, and a million is rather a high price to pay for seeing a man’s
expression of face change. Good night--let me go, please.”
During this long tirade Robert Lauderdale had walked up and down before
him with short, heavy steps, uttering occasional ejaculations, but at
the last words he took hold of Ralston’s arm again--rather roughly this
time.
“You’re an insolent young vagabond!” he cried, breaking into a fresh fit
of anger. “You’re insulting me in my own house.”
“You’ve been insulting me in your own house for the last quarter of an
hour,” retorted Ralston.
“And you’re throwing away the last chance you’ll ever get from me--”
“It wasn’t much of a chance--for a gentleman,” sneered the young man,
interrupting him.
“Confound it! Can’t you let me speak? I say--” He hesitated, losing the
thread of his intended speech in his anger.
“You don’t seem to have anything especial to say, except in the way of
abuse, and there’s no reason at all why I should listen to that sort of
thing. I’m not your son, and I’m not your butler--I’m thankful I’m not
your dog!”
“John!” roared the old man, shaking him by the arm. “Be silent, sir! I
won’t submit to such language!”
“What right have you to tell me what I shall submit to, or not submit
to? Because you’re a sort of distant relation, I suppose, and have got
into the habit of lording it over the whole tribe--who would lick the
heels of your boots for your money--every one of them, except my mother
and Katharine and me. Don’t tell me what I’m to submit to--”
“I didn’t say you!” shouted old Lauderdale. “I said that I wouldn’t hear
such language from you--you’re drunk, John Ralston--you’re mad drunk.”
“Then you’ll have to listen to my ravings just as long as you force me
to stay under your roof,” answered Ralston, almost trembling with rage.
“If you keep me here, I shall tell you just what I think of you--”
“By the Eternal--this is too much--you young--puppy! You graceless,
ungrateful--”
“I should really like to know what I’m to be grateful to you for,” said
Ralston, feeling that his hands were growing icy cold. “You’ve never
done anything for me or mine in your life--as you know. You’d much
better let me go. You’ll regret it if you don’t.”
“And you dare to threaten me, too--I tell you--I’ll make you--” His
words choked him, and again he shook Ralston’s arm violently.
“You won’t make me forget that you’re three times my age, at all
events,” answered the young man. “But unless you’re very careful during
the next ten minutes you’ll have a fit of apoplexy. You’d much better
let me go away. This sort of thing isn’t good for a man of your age--and
it’s not particularly dignified either. You’d realize it if you could
see yourself and hear yourself--oh! take care, please! That’s my hat.”
Robert Lauderdale’s fury had boiled over at last and expressed itself in
a very violent gesture, not intended for a blow, but very like one, and
utterly destructive to Ralston’s hat, which rolled shapeless upon the
polished wooden floor. The young man stooped as he spoke the last words,
and picked it up.
“Oh, I say, Jack! I didn’t mean to do that, my boy!” said the old
gentleman, with that absurdly foolish change of tone which generally
comes into the voice when one in anger has accidentally broken
something.
“No--I daresay not,” answered Ralston, coldly.
Without so much as a glance at old Lauderdale, he quickly opened the
door and left the room, as he would have done some minutes earlier if
his uncle had not held him by the arm. The library was downstairs, and
he was out of the house before Lauderdale had sufficiently recovered
from his surprise to call him back.
That, indeed, would have been quite useless, for Ralston would not have
turned his head. He had never been able to understand how a man could be
in a passion at one moment and brimming with good nature at the next,
for his own moods were enduring, passionate and brooding.
It had all been very serious to him, much more so than to the old
gentleman, though the latter had been by far the more noisy of the two
in his anger. If he had been able to reflect, he might have soon come to
the conclusion that the violent scene had been the result of a
misunderstanding, in the first instance, and secondly, of Robert
Lauderdale’s lack of wisdom in trying to make him take money for
Katharine. In the course of time he would have condoned the latter
offence and forgiven the former, but just now both seemed very hard to
bear.
After being exceptionally abstemious,--and he alone knew at what a cost
in the way of constant self-control,--he had been accused twice within
an hour of being drunk. And as though that were not enough, with all the
other matters which had combined to affect his temper on that day,
Robert Lauderdale had first tried to make him act dishonourably, as
Ralston thought, or at least in an unmanly way, and had then tried to
make a fool of him with the cheque for a million. He almost wished that
he could have kept the latter twenty-four hours for the sake of
frightening the old man into his senses. It would have been a fair act
of retaliation, he thought, though he would not in reality have stooped
to do it.
It was quite dark when he came out upon Fifty-ninth Street, and the
weather was foggy and threatening, though it was not cold. He had
forgotten his overcoat in his hurry to get away, and did not notice even
now that he was without it. Half mechanically he had pushed his high hat
into some sort of shape and put it on, and had already forgotten that it
was not in its normal condition. His face was very pale, and his eyes
were bright. Without thinking of the direction he was taking, he turned
into Fifth Avenue by force of habit. As he walked along, several men who
knew him passed him, walking up from their clubs to dress for dinner.
They most of them nodded, smiled rather oddly and went on. He noticed
nothing strange in their behaviour, being very much absorbed in his own
unpleasant reflections, but most of them were under the impression, from
the glimpse they had of him under the vivid electric light, that he was
very much the worse for drink, and that he had lost his overcoat and had
his hat smashed in some encounter with a rough or roughs unknown. One or
two of his rows had remained famous. But he was well known, too, for his
power of walking straight and of taking care of himself, even when he
was very far gone, and nobody who met him ventured to offer him any
assistance. On the other hand, no one would have believed that he was
perfectly sober, and that his hat had been destroyed by no less a person
than the great Robert Lauderdale himself.
He certainly deserved much more pity than he got that day. But good and
bad luck run in streaks, as the winds blow across land-locked waters,
and it is not easy to get across from one to the other. Ralston was
drifting in a current of circumstances from which he could not escape,
being what he was, a man with an irritable temper, more inclined to
resent the present than to prepare the future. Presently he turned
eastwards out of Fifth Avenue. He remembered afterwards that it must
have been somewhere near Forty-second Street, for he had a definite
impression of having lately passed the great black wall of the old
reservoir. He did not know why he turned just there, and he was probably
impelled to do so by some slight hindrance at the crossing he had
reached. At all events, he was sure of having walked at least a mile
since he had left Robert Lauderdale’s house.
The cross street was very dark compared with the Avenue he had left. He
stopped to light a cigar, in the vague hope that it might help him to
think, for he knew very well that he must go home before long and dress
for a dinner party, and then go on to the great Assembly ball at which
he was to meet Katharine. It struck him as he thought of the meeting
that he would have much more to tell her about their uncle Robert than
she could possibly have to relate of her own experience. He lit his
cigar very carefully. Anger had to some extent the effect of making him
deliberate and precise in his small actions. He held the lighted taper
to the end of his cigar several seconds, and then dropped it. It had
dazzled him, so that for the moment the street seemed to be quite black
in front of him. He walked on boldly, suspecting nothing, and a moment
later he fell to his full length upon a heap of building material piled
upon the pavement.
It is worth remarking, for the sake of those who take an interest in
tracing the relations of cause and effect, that this was the first, the
last and the only real accident which happened to John Ralston on that
day, and it was not a very serious one, nor, unfortunately, a very
unfrequent one in the streets of New York. But it happened to him, as
small accidents so often do, at an hour which gave it an especial
importance.
He lay stunned as he had fallen for more than a minute, and when he came
to himself he discovered that he had struck his head. The brim of his
already much injured hat had saved him from a wound; but the blow had
been a violent one, and though he got upon his feet almost immediately
and assured himself that he was not really injured, yet, when he had got
beyond the obstacle over which he had stumbled, he found it impossible
to recollect which way he should go in order to get home. The slight
concussion of the brain had temporarily disturbed the sense of
direction, a phenomenon not at all uncommon after receiving a violent
blow on the head, as many hard riders and hunting men are well aware.
But it was new to Ralston, and he began to think that he was losing his
mind. He stopped under a gas-lamp and looked at his watch, by way of
testing his sanity. It was half past six, and the watch was going. He
immediately began a mental calculation to ascertain whether he had been
unconscious for any length of time. He remembered that it had been after
five o’clock when he had been called to the telephone at the club. His
struggle with Bright had kept him some minutes longer, he had walked to
Robert Lauderdale’s, and his interview had lasted nearly half an hour,
and on recalling what he had done since then he had that distinct
impression of having lately seen the reservoir, of which mention has
already been made.
He walked on like a man in a dream, and more than half believing that he
was really dreaming. He was going eastwards, as he had been going when
he had entered the street, but he found it impossible to understand
which way his face was turned. He came to Madison Avenue, and knew it at
once, recognizing the houses, but though he stood still several minutes
at the corner, he could not distinguish which was up town and which down
town. He believed that if he could have seen the stars he could have
found his way, but the familiar buildings, recognizable in all their
features to his practised eye even in the uncertain gaslight, conveyed
to him no idea of direction, and the sky was overcast. In despair, at
last, he continued in the direction in which he had been going. If he
was crossing the avenue he must surely strike the water, whether he
went forwards or backwards, and he was positive that he should know the
East River from the North River, even on the darkest night, by the look
of the piers. But to all intents and purposes, though he knew where he
was, he was lost, being deprived of the sense of direction.
The confusion increased with the darkness of the next street he
traversed, and to his surprise the avenue beyond that did not seem
familiar. It was Park Avenue where it is tunnelled along its length for
the horse-cars which go to the Central Station. It was very dark, but in
a moment he again recognized the houses. By sheer instinct he turned to
the right, trusting to luck and giving up all hope of finding his way by
any process of reasoning. The darkness, the blow he had received when he
had fallen and all that had gone before, combined with the cold he felt,
deadened his senses still more.
He noticed for the first time that his overcoat was gone, and he
wondered vaguely whether it had been stolen from him when he had fallen.
In that case he must have been unconscious longer than he had imagined.
He felt for his watch, though he had looked at it a few moments
previously. It was in his pocket as well as his pocket-book and some
small change. He felt comforted at finding that he had money about him,
and wished he might come across a stray cab. Several passed him, but he
could see by the lamplight that there were people in them, dressed for
dinner. It was growing late, since they were already going to their
dinner-parties. He felt very cold, and suddenly the flakes of snow began
to fall thick and fast in his face. The weather had changed in half an
hour, and a blizzard was coming. He shivered and trudged on, not knowing
whither. He walked faster and faster, as men generally do when they have
lost their way, and he turned in many directions, losing himself more
completely at every new attempt, yet walking ever more rapidly, pursued
by the nervous consciousness that he should be dressing for dinner and
that there was no time to be lost. He did not feel dizzy nor weak, but
he was utterly confused, and began to be unconscious of the distance he
was traversing and of the time as it passed.
All at once he came upon a vast, dim square full of small trees. At
first he thought he was in Gramercy Park, but the size of the place soon
told him that he was mistaken. By this time it was snowing heavily and
the pavements were already white. He pulled up the collar of his frock
coat and hid his right hand in the front of it, between the buttons,
blowing into his left at the same time, for both were freezing. He
stared up at the first corner gas-lamp he came to, and read without
difficulty the name in black letters. He was in Tompkins Square.
He had been there once or twice in his life, and had been struck by the
great, quiet, open place, and he understood once more where he was, and
looked at his watch. It was nearly ten o’clock. He rubbed his eyes, and
then rubbed the snow-flakes off the glass, for they fell so fast that he
could not hold it to the light a moment before one of them fell into the
open case. He had been wandering for nearly three hours, dinnerless, in
the snow, and he suddenly felt numb and hungry and thirsty all at once.
But at the same time, as though by magic, the sense of locality and
direction returned. He put his watch into his pocket again, stamped the
wet snow from his shoes and struck resolutely westward. He knew how
hopeless it was to expect to find a carriage of any sort in that poor
quarter of the city. Oddly enough, the first thing that struck him was
the absurdity of his own conduct in not once asking his way, for he was
certain that he had met many hundreds of people during those hours of
wandering. He marched on through the snow, perfectly satisfied at having
recovered his senses, though he now for the first time felt a severe
pain in his head.
Before long he reached a horse-car track and waited for the car to come
up, without the least hesitation as to its direction. He got on without
difficulty, though he noticed that the conductor looked at him keenly
and seemed inclined to help him. He paid his five cents and sat down in
the corner away from the door. It was pleasantly warm by contrast with
the weather he had been facing for hours, and the straw under his feet
seemed deliciously comfortable. He remembered being surprised at finding
himself so tired, and at the pain in his head. There was one other man
in the car, who stood near the door talking with the conductor. He was a
short man, very broad in the shoulders and thick about the neck, but not
at all fat, as Ralston noticed, being a judge of athletes. This man wore
an overcoat with a superb sable collar, and a gorgeous gold chain was
stretched across the broad expanse of his waistcoat. He was perfectly
clean shaven, and looked as though he might be a successful prize
fighter. At this point in his observation John Ralston fell asleep.
He had two more intervals of consciousness.
He had gone to sleep in the horse-car. He woke to find himself fighting
the man with the fur coat and the chain, out under the falling snow,
with half a dozen horse-car drivers and conductors making a ring, each
with a lantern. He thought he remembered seeing a red streak on the face
of his adversary. A moment later he saw a vivid flash of light, and
then he was unconscious again.
When he opened his eyes once more he looked into his mother’s face, and
he saw an expression there which he never forgot as long as he lived.