Ralston

“ Ralston strode briskly up Fifth Avenue, conscious all about him of the electric pressure of War. It was six o'clock—the hour when the hard outlines of the tops of office buildings and the prosaic steeples of contemporary religion, flushed with rose, and "fretted with golden fire," melt with a glow of unreality into the darkening blue. Here and there in the eastern sky tiny points trembled elusively, and a molten crescent followed him along the housetops, its pale disk growing each instant brighter. ”

“ The cool night air soothed Ralston's nerves, but with it he felt limp and tired. The excitement at the restaurant, the wild dash down Fifth Avenue, the presence with them of a man who might perhaps be dead, the fear of pursuit, the extraordinary situation in which he, a man of so much recent prominence, found himself, the strange way in which this girl had become a partner in his fortunes, dazed and bewildered him.
[Pg 188] "He can't be dead," muttered Ralston. "He can't be dead!" ”

“ As Ralston crossed the threshold it occurred to him forcibly that although the house in which he now stood was not over three blocks from his lodgings, and that his round-the-clock chase had brought him, like a man lost in the woods, back almost to his starting point, the fact that he had actually struck Steadman's trail at all, to say nothing of having run him to earth, was in itself no less than a miracle. Fate had certainly favored him upon the one hand, if it had dashed his hopes upon the other. ”

“ The brown mare had responded to Ralston’s signal like the loyal, honest little brute she was. The gravel flew behind them, and the rat-a-tat-tat of the horses’ hoofs on the hard road was like the roll of a drum. They were running neck and neck, but Ralston had little fear of the result, unless the gray had phenomenal speed.
Ralston knew that whoever reached the gate first must open it. If he could get far enough in the lead, he could afford to do so; if not, he meant to “pull” his horse and leave it to Smith. The real race would be from the gate to the pony. ”

“ She rode with her head erect and her eyes glancing boldly over the crowded streets. Curious glances were directed at her, but she met them without agitation. Ralston observed her with a growing admiration.
"Thank you," he said warmly. "I know this can hardly be a pleasant experience for you. But it is good for these people here to know that nothing they can do will make any difference—no not enough to alter the mere routine of our lives. Let us go forward." ”

“ But Katharine did not release her hold. A woman’s idea of protecting a man is to wind herself round him, so as to make him perfectly helpless to defend himself.
“Let me go, dear,” said Ralston, in a voice suddenly tender, but trembling a little.
“Katharine! Go, I say!” The white of Alexander’s eyes was bloodshot.
But Katharine tried to drag John back from him as he advanced.
“Go! Leave the room!” cried Alexander, roughly.
With a quick movement he seized her arm, almost where he had grasped it on the previous day, and he tried to pull her away from Ralston. His strong hand hurt her. ”

“ Ralston objected. "But you have not yet started, and if the man followed you from Calcutta to Peshawur, he may follow you from Peshawur to Bombay."
Mrs. Oliver drew back with a start of terror and Ralston instantly took back his words.
"Of course, we will take care of you on your way south. You may rely on that," he said with a smile. "But if you could bring yourself to stay here for a day or two I should be much obliged. You see, it is impossible to fix the man's identity from a description, and it is really important that he should be caught." ”

“ Every one may judge of that out of his own experience.
Ralston, who was familiar enough with the character of his family in all its branches, thought that he saw in Hester Crowdie a sort of modification of the same love of possession which made a miser of Alexander Junior, and which, if opposed, would be as ruthless and as dangerous. He might have been willing to admit that he had a share of the same peculiarity, quality, or defect, himself. The tenacity of his love for Katharine proved that he had it. ”

“ Wingfield was sitting on one side of her, in one of those naturally graceful attitudes which athletes assume without thought or care, one elbow on his knee as he bent forward, supporting his chin upon his in-turned hand, his resolute young face turned towards Crowdie, his black eyes somewhat sad and shadowy. On Katharine’s other side sat Ralston, nervous, moody, ready to spring, as it were, for he had not yet recovered from his anger at what had been said about secret marriages. ”

“ A worse woman would not so long have been satisfied with beauty alone, and with compelling by her mere presence the admiration of a crowd in which no one face was dearer than the rest, nor than it should be.
She longed with all her heart to see Katharine married, as her husband did from very different reasons. Nor were his arguments bad or unkind from his point of view. He feared lest she should marry Ralston in spite of him, and he honestly believed Ralston to be a worthless young fellow, who could make no woman happy. ”

“ CHAPTER XXIV NEWS FROM AJMERE Something of this pilgrimage Ralston understood; and what he understood he explained to Dick Linforth on the top of the tower at Peshawur. Linforth, however, was still perplexed, still unconvinced.
"I can't believe it," he cried; "I know Shere Ali so well."
Ralston shook his head.
"England overlaid the real man with a pretty varnish," he said. "That's all it ever does. And the varnish peels off easily when the man comes back to an Indian sun. There's not one of these people from the hills but has in him the makings of a fanatic. ”

“ Ralston was eminently a woman of the world in the best sense of an expression which many think can mean no good. She had never been beautiful and had never been vain, but she had much which attracts as beauty does, and holds as no beauty can. Of the Lauderdales now living, she was undeniably the most gifted. Katharine might have rivalled her, had she developed under more favourable circumstances. But with the education she had received, good as it had been of its kind, it was not probable that the young girl would grow up into such a woman. ”

“ The goddess does not speak to any but her priests," and through the throng there ran a murmur of approval. There, was a movement, too—a movement towards Ralston. It was as yet a hesitating movement—those behind pushed, those in front and within Ralston's vision held back. But at any moment the movement might become a rush. ”

“ But there was no denying the superiority of a man who had bravely overcome such temptation as John Ralston had formerly had to deal with, over one who, like her father, believed, trembled, and nevertheless gave himself up wholly to his evil passion. ”

“ Katharine started a little and glanced at John Ralston.
“Yes,” said the latter. “It’s equivalent to saying that nobody knows how they grow. But that doesn’t at all explain what aunt Maggie means by what she said. Come, aunt Maggie, we’re all waiting for you to tell us.”
“Oh—I’m getting so sleepy, my dears, don’t ask me to explain things! You know I’m always sleepy in the evening. It’s taking an unfair advantage of me! Why is love like a truffle? ”

“ This was a new phase, too, and he was ready to reproach himself with having inadvertently been the cause of it.
“That’s just it,” answered Katharine. “You say, each in our own way—it seems to me that there’s only one way—and that’s the very most that can be. That’s what I mean, dear. There mustn’t be two ways. There’s only one way of caring.”
“Well—that’s our way, isn’t it?” asked Ralston, watching her tenderly.
“Not if it isn’t just the same for both of us. Because you’re a man and I’m a woman—that’s not a reason for there being any difference—I’m sure it isn’t, Jack!” ”

“ Ralston turned to the Pathan who accompanied him. "Turn the fellow into the street."
Protests rose from the crowd; the protests became cries of anger; the throng swayed and jostled. But the Pathan led the priest to the door and thrust him out.
Again Ralston turned to the platform.
"Listen to me," he called out to the lady from Gujerat. "You must leave
Peshawur. You are a trouble to the town. I will not let you stay."
But the lady paid no heed. Her mind floated above the earth, and with every moment the danger grew. Closer and closer the throng pressed in upon Ralston and his attendant. ”

“ Ralston went on. "But I counted without the Indian Government. They brought you out to India, at my special request, for a special purpose, and then, when they had got you, they turned you over to work which anyone else could have done. So six months have been wasted. But that's their little way."
"You have special work for me?" said Linforth quietly enough, though his heart was beating quickly in his breast. An answer came which still quickened its beatings.
"Work that you alone can do," Ralston replied gravely. ”

“ But that was precisely what Katharine wished to believe—that love was not at all like other passions, that it bore not the slightest resemblance in its nature to those which she had seen asserting themselves so strongly around her, and of which she was beginning to understand something by proxy, as it were. For though she had said that her love for John Ralston was like her father’s love of money, she did not in the least wish to believe it. She attached to love the highest interpretation of which it is capable ”

“ Ralston laughed.
“We’ve got secrets—the bug-hunter and me.”
“You’re rather young for secrets, Susie.”
“Nobody’s too young for secrets,” she declared. “Haven’t you any?”
“Sure,” Ralston nodded.
“I like you,” Susie whispered impulsively. “Let’s swap secrets.”
He looked at her and wished he dared. He would have liked to tell her of his mission, to ask her help; for he realized that, if she chose, no one could help him more. Like Smith, he recognized that quality in her they each called “gameness,” and even more than Smith he appreciated the commingling of Scotch shrewdness and Indian craft. ”

“ Some day something will happen. To go down with two of your levies to-day is madness. I speak seriously. The place is in a ferment."
"Oh, I think I'll be all right," said Ralston, and he rode at a trot down from Government House into the road which leads past the gaol and the Fort to the gate of Peshawur. At the gate he reduced the trot to a walk, and so, with his two levies behind him, passed up along the streets like a man utterly undisturbed. ”

“ Linforth stood there white with anger against Shere Ali, hot to join in the chase. Ralston understood that if ever he should need a man to hunt down that quarry through peril and privations, here at his hand was the man on whom he could rely. ”

“ She didn’t come to the wedding, I know, for I was Hester’s bridesmaid. Charlotte and I were the only two.”
“She didn’t come to the wedding because she was dead,” said Ralston. “That’s an awfully good reason.”
“I didn’t know. I’ve often wondered about her, but I didn’t like to ask questions. One doesn’t you know, about people who don’t turn up. They always are dead, or something—and then one feels so uncomfortable.”
“Yes,” answered Ralston, as though meditating on the fact. “At all events,” he continued, “nobody ever knew much about Crowdie, nor where he came from. ”

“ The finale in Ralston is extremely poor—best in the Ryazan variant, where the comrade beats the enchantress-queen with red-hot bars until he has driven out of her all her magic strength, ‘leaving her only one woman’s strength, and that a very poor one.’ In the winged cart we seem to get a forecast of the tricycle. ”

“ For once Ralston was outwitted. Dick Linforth had Violet Oliver to defend, and the defence was well done. Ralston was left without a suspicion that Linforth had any reason beyond the mere truth of the facts to spur him to defend her.
"Yes, that's the mistake," said Ralston. "The woman's friendly and means no more than she says or looks. But these fellows don't understand such friendship. Shere Ali is here dreaming of a woman he knows he can never marry—because of his race. And so he's ready to run amuck. ”

“ He could find plenty of young girls only too delighted to marry him, and he would certainly marry one of them before long. His life was not blighted, and she had not broken his heart, if hearts ever break at all. She remembered what she had once borne, in the belief that John Ralston was disgraced for life on that memorable occasion when all New York had learned that he had been brought home, apparently drunk, after a midnight encounter with a pugilist, who had found occasion to quarrel with him in a horse-car. ”

“ That is, he was ready to spend even what he had saved, in order to get possession of the greater sum. And he was far more ready to spend other things, such as his pride and his manliness. He was ready and willing to lay the shears to his garment of righteousness, and to clip and cut it to the very limits of moral decency, leaving but enough to cover the nakedness of his miserly soul.
Therefore he had written that letter to John Ralston, and one something like it to John’s mother, believing it probable that she had been told by her son of much that had taken place. ”

“ Now we’re friends again, Jack; she’s been splendid, you know, or rather, you don’t half know!”
“And what happened the other day, to save your remaining locks?” enquired Ralston, with a smile.
“Oh, I can’t tell you. Perhaps she will, some day. But as I was saying, you can’t imagine what my life at home has been all these years. I’m not sure whether it hasn’t been worse since Charlotte was married. You know what we are—we’re so awfully polite when we fight. Ham Bright’s the only one who gets rough when he’s excited. That’s California and Nevada, I suppose. But we! we quarrel with all solemnity. ”