Hardin

“ In spite of his resistance, the quiet came creeping into Hardin’s soul. His muscles were relaxing; he was slipping toward sleep.
“I’ve wondered, too,” Brandon took a slower tempo, “if we could not see men better by searching for their apex. Perhaps you’ve never looked at life that way?”
The ugly lip flared. Hardin couldn’t see what Brandon was driving at. He’d never had time to sit still and look at life! He’d just lived! Just worked along!
“What are we doing? Climbing up a mountain. Whatever we call this journey of ours, ambition, labor; life. We climb up; we creep down. ”

“ Man instinctively shuns the murderer.
Maxime never asked of the future of the vanished queen of the El Dorado. In his visits to San Francisco he finds that few cross Philip Hardin's threshold socially. Even these are never bid to come again. Is there a hidden queen in the house on the hill? Rumor says so.
Rising in power, Philip Hardin steadily moves forward. He asks no favors. He seeks no friends. All unmindful is he of the tattle that a veiled lady of elegant appearance sometimes walks under the leafy bowers shading his lovely home. ”

“ Yet, to his astonishment, there was no look of fear in Hardin's blue eyes. Instead, they were moderately surprised, vastly interested. He did not speak for some time. Then he said: "Thanks, Danner. I believe you saved my life. Should you mind picking up that rock again?"
Hugo dismissed the Indians with a few words. He glanced again at Hardin to make sure of his composure. Then he lifted the square stone back to its position.
Hardin was thinking aloud. "That stone must weigh four tons. No man alive can handle four tons like that. How do you do it, Hugo?"
Hot, streaming sun. Tumbled débris. ”

“ Hardin, plunging into the general madness of stock speculation, destined to reign for twenty years, keeps his own counsel. He sneers not at the households queened over by the "Doubtful Loveliness" of the "Rearranged Aristocracy of the Pacific." He has certain twinges when he hears the laughing girl child at play in the bowers of his park. While the ex-queen of the El Dorado, now a marvel of womanly beauty, gazes on that dancing child, she cannot yet see, among the many flashing gems loading her hands, the plain circlet of a wedding ring. ”

“ Is she Cuban, Creole, French, Andalusian, Italian, or a wandering gypsy star? A jewelled dagger-sheath in her corsage speaks of Spain or Italy. Maxime notes the unaccustomed eagerness with which Hardin recklessly plays. He seems determined to attract the especial attention of the divinity of the hour. Hardin's color is unusual. His features are sternly set. Near him stands "French Charlie," one of the deadliest gamesters of the plaza. Equally quick with card, knife, or trigger, the Creole gambler is a man to be avoided. He is as dangerous as the crouching panther in its fearful leap. ”

“ Vague sadness fills Hortense Duval's heart as she wanders through her silent mansion, choosing these little belongings which are dear to her shadowed heart. They will rob a Parisian home of suspicious newness. The control of the heiress as well as their own child, the ample monetary provision, and the social platform arranged for her, prove Hardin's devotion. It is the best she can do. ”

“ Hardin did not speak, but his eyes had left the ground.
“Look at this desert. I reckon that there’s no man who knows better than I do just what you’ve done. You’ve gone ahead when others laughed at you. You’ve worked when others slept.”
Hardin’s head lost its shamed droop. Some one knew what he had done. Gerty had known, too, but she was ashamed of him. To her, he had failed.
“Don’t covet all the parts, Hardin. You started it, you and Estrada. He’s had less fun out of it, even, than you. I know that you sacrificed your position to get the thing pulled through. ”

“ The hand of every true man will be extended to assist you in your upward course, and I trust that the name of Hardin will in the future be associated with the performance of deeds that will ennoble his family and be a blessing to humanity. ”

“ PŠre Ribaut humbly begs the protection of his Grace for his protege, Armand Valois, in case he visits California.
Philip Hardin, in his office, weaving his golden webs, darkened here and there with black threads of crime, is deaf to the cry of conscience. What is the orphaned girl to him? A mere human puppet. He hears not the panther feet of the avengers of wrong on his trail. Blind insecurity, Judge Hardin. ”

“ Hardin said they could depend on hobo labor. His enthusiasm took fire; he saw the work begun on his gate. “That class of men flock like bees to such work as this. There’s no trouble getting them; they just drop in. Curious, isn’t it, how such fellows keep track of the world’s work? You build a levee, you begin a bridge, and there’s your hobo on the spot. It’s good labor, too, though it’s fickle.” It was the other Hardin, the chiseled man of affairs and experience. Rickard agreed that they would find such help, but it would not do to rely on it. ”

“ That was the training of the good executive, of men like Marshall and MacLean. Nothing to be left to chance; to foresee emergencies, not to be taken by them unaware. The reason of Hardin’s downfall was his slipshod habits. How could he be a good officer who had never drilled as a soldier? There was the gap at the intake, Hardin’s grotesque folly, widened from one hundred feet to ten times the original cut; widening every day, with neither equipment nor camp adequate to push through a work of half the original magnitude. Cutting away, moreover, was the island, Disaster Island ”

“ Hollister and the Youngbergs were seen taking their seats near the orchestra stand, behind the bickering merry Blinns. Morton was filling the other proscenium with his eastern guests.
Brandon had to surrender to an attack of coughing. He leaned, spent, against the wall. “That audience,” he gasped, “represents several million dollars—of dissatisfaction.” The phrase had come to him in his paroxysm. He would use it in his story for the Sun. If there was a story.
“If Marshall expects to coerce those men, I lose my guess. Then he’s no judge of men,” cried Hardin. “Look at those faces.” ”

“ If Henry Harding had been asked why the young man interested him, he, perhaps, could not have told. But it was his well-bred air, coupled with garments that scarce corresponded; and, above all, the idea that he was looking upon a stranger in a strange land, alone, perhaps friendless—a foreshadowing of his own future. These were the thoughts passing in his mind, which at the moment made him look with a friendly eye upon his fellow oyster-eater at the bar. ”

“ Nicholas Harding was deeply moved; he was indeed a different man. In a hoarse voice he described the horrors of the interminable outward voyage, the perpetual dread of being too late, the nightly nightmare of Claire married to a criminal lunatic, if not dead already by his hand.
“Crime and madness,” said he, “are in their blood. I found that out too. The mother was a saint, but I discovered she had died in an asylum; the father is sane, but you know his reputation. ”

“ There was something grand in the personality of Harding, not only in his almost gigantic physique but also his sturdy, frank, good-natured, but earnest and indomitable character, which causes him to loom up across the intervening years as a type of the people that have felled forests, reclaimed waste places, and given thews and sinews to the Republic that in a brief century has placed itself in the front rank of nations. ”

“ He was a strong, vigorous-looking man for his years, and larger than the average mountaineer. He walked erect, his brown jeans and homespun clothing fitting loosely, his gray hair falling from under a well-worn broad-brimmed hat to his shoulders.
The Hardings lived on a settlement road at the foot of Bush Mountain, in a weather-beaten old log-house, shaded by a fine chestnut-oak, and a towering spruce pine. The widow Harding sat out on the low piazza shelling seed corn into a small splint basket, and she stared at the approaching visitor with surprise and displeasure. ”

“ That was no business of Henry Harding’s, and he was quite contented to pass on without interfering—the more so as the countenance of one of the sober parties of the trio, turned for a moment towards him as he came up, clearly counselled the shunning of its owner.
He was passing on, and had already got beyond the group, when curiosity prompted him to glance back. The face of a man so helplessly intoxicated as the one supported between the other two could not be other than a curious spectacle. ”

“ Harding thought a little. “You said it was Blaydes. Well, if so, she shall never have him. But I only wish I knew where he was!”
“So do I,” said Daintree, viciously; and he held out his hand as they entered the hall; but Mr. Harding would not hear of his going to bed.
“For pity’s sake don’t desert me yet! There is no sleep for me this night. What can have happened to the fellow—between West End and this? What can have happened?”
“I neither know nor care.”
“Nor I—nor I—but a man can’t help his forebodings!” ”

“ Harding was too well versed in art to betray disappointment. He knew when to bring wine to the billiard-table, so to create such a delirium of excitement, that Edward was wholly unconscious of his own actions; and once or twice he led him into scenes, and made him sharer of such vicious pleasures, that secured him as his slave; for when the excitement was over, the agony of remorse, the misery, lest his confiding captain should suspect him other than he seemed, made him cling to Harding's promises of secrecy, as his only refuge, even while he loathed the man himself. ”

“ It is very usual," says Hardinge. "And you are her guardian, you know, and——"
"Why not propose to her yourself?" says the professor, turning violently upon him. "Why give me this terrible task? Are you a coward, that you shrink from learning your fate except at the hands of another—another who——"
"To tell you the truth, that is it," interrupts Hardinge, simply. "I don't wonder at your indignation, but the fact is, I love her so much, that I fear to put it to the touch myself. You will help me, won't you? You see, you stand in the place of her father, Curzon. ”

“ A GROWING HORROR.
"There are some men who fill you from the beginning with a feeling of revulsion. Such a one was Antony Harding. When he came into the parlor where I sat, I felt it difficult to advance and greet him with the necessary formalities, so forcibly did I shrink from his glance, his smile, his bow of easy assurance. ”

“ At all events, Harding was “a case, or subject, in point;” for, but a few minutes before, when he was apprehending many certain and uncertain evils, from the resentment of the count, he had not the least desire for refreshment; but, on the first glimpse of hope, he had an appetite like a soldier escaped from a beleaguered city. And, no sooner was the inner man replenished, than—on the aforesaid principle of inter-reaction—his spirits rose almost to the point of absolute content. Most axioms are tautological; but none is more so than that which asserts that “man is a strange animal.” ”

“ A sudden change in Harding's countenance made Alan pause. You may have seen how utterly deficient he was both in moral and physical courage; but the last faint embers of manhood smouldered into sullen flame, under the accumulation of insult. He had risen to his feet with a dark devilish malice on his face, and made a step towards a table near him.
Wyverne's keen gaze read his purpose thoroughly, but never wavered in its freezing contempt.
"Ah, that's the drawer where you keep your revolver," he said. "If you drive a rat into a corner, he will turn sometimes. ”

“ He went all the way with him to Leicester Square and would, Harding believed, have followed him to his bookshop had he not managed to lose him in the crowd. Work was spoilt for Harding that day. Whenever he tried to think clearly that man's booming voice seemed to get in the way, his large, bushy, black moustache seemed to whisk up and down the bookshelves, and his broad, aggressive chest overshadowed the customers. ”

“ He had got his discharge, you see, before the company had a chance to hand it to him.”
“Don't you think it's in a man to live down such a hard run of luck?” inquired Harding quietly.
“It's in you, lad, if it's in anybody; but”—and O'Grady shook his head ominously—“it's far and away too deep a subject for a mere night man to discuss.” ”

“ A struggle on the top of that lurching box car would fall little short of madness. And why was this stranger, who was a passenger and should have been an innocent bystander, so rabidly coming to the aid of Chris Davy? Here was a mystery beyond Harding's power to solve. But Harding would retreat no farther. If he must fight for his passage, he would take his enemies one at a time. ”

“ With the appearance of this young man Henry Harding was strangely impressed. He was handsome, of a complexion almost olive, dark curling hair, a full round eye, and an aquiline nose—features that at once proclaimed him a foreigner. The few words to which he gave utterance confirmed it. They were spoken in very imperfect English, with an accent which appeared to be Italian. Notwithstanding a somewhat threadbare suit of clothes, his bearing told either of birth or breeding; in short, one could not have made much of a mistake in supposing him to have been brought up a gentleman. ”