It was between three and four o’clock, and Broadway was crowded, as it generally is at that time in the afternoon. In the normal life of a great city, the crowd flows and ebbs in the thoroughfares as regularly as the blood in a living body. From that mysterious, grey hour, when the first distant rumble is heard in the deserted streets, just before the outlines of the chimneys become distinct against the clouds or the murky sky, when the night-worker and the man of pleasure, the day-labourer and the dawn, all meet for a brief moment at one of the crossings in daily life’s labyrinth, through all the four and twenty hours in which each pulsation is completed, until that dull, far-off roll of the earliest cart echoes again, followed within a few minutes by many others,—round and round the clock again, with unfailing exactness, you may note the same rise and fall of the life-stream.

The point at which Ralston and his companions crossed Broadway is a particularly busy one. It is near many of the principal theatres; there are a number of big hotels in the neighbourhood; there are some fashionable shops; it is only one short block from the junction of Broadway and Sixth Avenue, where there is an important station of the elevated road, and there are the usual carts, vans and horse-cars chasing each other up and down, and not leaving even enough road for two carriages to pass one another on either side of the tracks. The streams of traffic meet noisily, and thump and bump and jostle through the difficulty, and a man standing there may watch the expression change in all the faces as they approach the point. The natural look disappears for a moment; the eyes glance nervously to the right and left; the lips are set as though for an effort; the very carriage of the body is different, as though the muscles were tightened for an exertion which the frame may or may not be called upon to make instantly without warning. It is an odd sight, though one which few people see, every one being concerned to some extent for his own safety, and oblivious of his neighbour’s dangers.

Ralston and the others stood at the corner waiting for an opportunity to pass. There was a momentary interruption of the line of vehicles on the up-town side, which was nearest to them. Ralston stepped forward first toward the track. Glancing to the left, he saw a big express cart coming up at full speed, and on the other track, from his right as he stood, a horse-car was coming down, followed at some distance by a large, empty van. The horse-car was nearest to him, and passed the corner briskly. A small boy, wheeling an empty perambulator and leading a good-looking rough terrier by a red string, crossed towards Ralston between the horse-car and the van, dragging the dog after him, and was about to cross the other track when he saw that the express cart rattling up town was close upon him. He paused, and drew back a little to let it pass, pulling back his perambulator, which, however, caught sideways between the rails. At the same instant the clanging bell and the clatter of a fire engine, followed by a hook and ladder cart, and driven at full speed, produced a sudden commotion, and the man who was driving the empty van looked backward and hastened his horses, in order to get out of the way. In the confusion the little boy and his perambulator were in danger of annihilation.

Ralston jumped the track, snatched the boy in one arm and lifted the perambulator bodily with his other hand, throwing them across the second pair of rails as he sprang. He fell at full length in the carriage way. He lay quite still for a moment, and the horses of the empty van stuck out their fore-feet and stopped with a plunge close beside him. The people paused on the pavement, and one or two came forward to help him. There is no policeman at this crossing as a rule, as there is one a block higher, at the main corner. Ralston was not hurt, however, though he had narrowly escaped losing his foot, for the wheel of one of the vehicles had torn the heel from his shoe. He was on his legs in a few moments, holding the terrified boy by the collar, and lecturing him roughly upon the folly of doing risky things with a perambulator. Meanwhile the horse-cars and wagons which had blocked the crossing having moved off in opposite directions, Bright and Frank Miner ran across. Bright was very pale as he passed his arm through Ralston’s and drew him away. Miner looked at him with silent admiration, having all his life longed to be the hero of some such accident.

“I wish you wouldn’t do such things, Jack,” said Bright, in his calm voice. “Are you hurt?”

“Not a bit,” answered Ralston, who seemed to have enjoyed the excitement. “The thing almost took off my foot, though. I can’t walk. Come over to the Imperial again. I’ll get brushed down, and take a cab. Come along—I can’t stand this crowd. There’ll be a reporter in a minute.”

Without further words the three recrossed the street to the hotel.

“I don’t suppose the most rigid doctor would object to my having something to drink after that tumble,” observed Ralston, as they passed through the crowded hall.

“Every man is the best judge of what he wants,” answered Bright.

Few people noticed, or appeared to notice, Ralston’s dilapidated condition, his smashed hat, his dusty clothes and his heelless shoe. He found a hall-boy who brushed him, and little Frank Miner did his best to restore the hat to an appearance of respectability.

“All right, Frank,” said Ralston. “Don’t bother—I’m going home in a cab, you know.”

He led the way to the bar, swallowed half a tumbler of whiskey neat, and then got into a carriage.

“See you this evening,” he said briefly, as he nodded to Bright and Miner, and shut the cab door after him.

The other two watched the carriage a moment, as it drove away, and then looked at one another. Miner had a trick of moving his right ear when he was puzzled. It is rather an unusual peculiarity, and his friends knew what it meant. As Bright looked at him the ear began to move slowly, backwards and forwards, with a slight upward motion. Bright smiled.

“You needn’t wag it so far, Frank,” he said. “He’s going home. It will be all right now.”

“I suppose so—or I hope so, at least. I wonder if Mrs. Ralston is in.”

“Why?”

“The trouble with you intelligent men is that you have no sense,” answered the little man. “He’s had another drink—four fingers it was, too—and he’s been badly shaken up, and he had the beginning of a ‘jag’ on before, and he’s going home in a rolling cab, which makes it worse. If he meets his mother, there’ll be a row. That’s all. Even when I was a boy it wasn’t good form to be drunk before dinner, and nobody drinks now—at least, not as they used to. Well—it’s none of my business.”

“It’s everybody’s business,” said Bright. “But a harder man to handle I don’t know. He’ll either come to grief or glory, or both together, one of these days. It’s not the quantity he takes—it’s the confounded irregularity of him. I’m going to the club—are you coming?”

“I may as well correct my proofs there as anywhere else. Pocket’s full of them.” Miner tapped his round little chest with an air of some importance.

“Proofs, eh? Something new?”

“I’ve worn them out, my boy. They’re incapable of returning me with thanks any more—until next time. I’ve worn them out, heel and toe,—right out.”

“Is it a book, Frank?”

“Not yet. But it’s going to be. This is the first—a series of essays, you know—this is the wedge, and I’ve got it in, and I’m going to drive it for all I’m worth, and when there are six or seven they’ll make a book, together with some other things—something in the same style—which have appeared before.”

“I’m very glad, old man. I congratulate you. Go in and win.”

“It’s an awful life, though,” said Frank Miner, growing suddenly grave.

Bright glanced at the neat, rotund little figure, at the pink cheeks and bright eyes, and he smiled quietly.

“It’s not wearing you to the bone yet,” he observed.

“Oh—that’s no sign! Look at Napoleon. He had rather my figure, I believe. What’s the good of getting thin about things, anyhow? It’s only unhappy people who get thin. You work hard enough, Ham, in your humdrum way—oh, I don’t envy your lot!—and you’re laying it on, Ham, you’re laying it on steadily, year after year. You’ll be a fat man, Ham—ever so much fatter than I am, because there’s twice as much of you, to begin with. Besides, you’ve got a big chest and that makes a man look stout. But then, you don’t care, do you? You’re perfectly happy, so you get fat. So would Apollo, if he were a successful banker, and gave up bothering about goddesses and things. As for me, I about keep my weight. Given up bread, though—last summer. Bad thing, bread.”

So Miner chattered on as he walked by his friend’s side, towards the club. There was no great talent in him, though he had drifted into literature, and of industry he had not so much as he made people believe. But he possessed the treasure of cheerfulness, and dispensed it freely in his conversation, whereas in his writings he strove at the production of gruesome and melancholy tales, stories of suffering and horror, the analysis of pain and the portraiture of death in many forms. The contradiction between the disposition of literary men and their works is often a curious study.

Mrs. Ralston was at home that afternoon, or rather, to be accurate in the social sense, she was in, and had given orders to the general effect that only her particular friends were to be admitted. This, again, is a statement susceptible of misapprehension, as she had not really any particular friends in the world, but only acquaintances in divers degrees of intimacy, who called themselves her friends and sometimes called one another her enemies. But of such matters she took little heed, and was at no pains to set people right with regard to her private opinion of them. She did many kind things within society’s limits and without, but she was wise enough to expect nothing in return, being well aware that real gratitude is a mysterious cryptogam like the truffle, and indeed closely resembling the latter in its rarity, its spontaneous growth, its unprepossessing appearance, and in the fact that it is more often found and enjoyed by the lower animals than by man.

It may be as well to elucidate here the somewhat intricate points of the Lauderdales’ genealogy and connections, seeing that both have a direct bearing upon the life of Katharine Lauderdale, of John Ralston, and of many others who will appear in the course of this episodic history.

In old times the primeval Alexander Lauderdale, a younger son of an honourable Scotch family, brought his wife, with a few goods and no particular chattels, to New York, and they had two sons, Alexander and Robert, and died and were buried. Of these two sons the elder, Alexander, did very well in the world, married a girl of Dutch family, Anna Van Blaricorn, and had three sons, and he and his wife died and were buried beside the primeval Alexander.

Of these three sons the eldest was Alexander Lauderdale, the philanthropist, of whom mention has been made, who was alive at the time this story begins, who married a young girl of Puritan lineage and some fortune. She died when their only son, Alexander Lauderdale Junior, was twenty-two years of age. The latter married Emma Camperdown, of the Kentucky Catholic family, and had two daughters, the elder, Charlotte, married at the present time to Benjamin Slayback of Nevada, member of Congress, the younger, Katharine Lauderdale, being John Ralston’s dark cousin.

So much for the first of the three sons. The second was Robert Lauderdale, the famous millionaire, the uncle Robert spoken of by Ralston and the others, who never married, and was at the time of this tale about seventy-five years of age. He originally made a great sum by a fortunate investment in a piece of land which lies in the heart of the present city of Chicago, and having begun with real estate he stuck to it like the wise man he was, and its value doubled and decupled and centupled, and no one knew how rich he was. He was the second son of the elder son of the primeval Alexander.

The third son of that elder son was Ralph Lauderdale, who was killed at the battle of Chancellorsville in the Civil War. He married a Miss Charlotte Mainwaring, whose father had been an Englishman settled somewhere in the South. Katharine, the widow of the late Admiral Ralston, was the only child of their marriage, and her only child was John Ralston, second cousin to Katharine Lauderdale and Mrs. Slayback.

But the primeval Alexander had a second son Robert, who had only one daughter, Margaret, married to Rufus Thompson. And Rufus Thompson’s sister married Livingston Miner of New York, and was the mother of Frank Miner and of three unmarried daughters. That is the Miner connection.

And on the Lauderdale side Rufus Thompson had one daughter by his wife, Margaret Lauderdale; and that daughter married Richard Bright of Cincinnati, who died, leaving two children, Hamilton Bright and his sister Hester, the wife of Walter Crowdie, the eminent painter of New York. This is the relationship of the Brights to the Lauderdales. Bright, John Ralston and Katharine Lauderdale were all descended from the same great-great-grandfather—the primeval Alexander. And as there is nothing duller to the ordinary mind than genealogy, except the laborious process of tracing it, little more shall be said about it hereafter, and the ingenious reader may refer to these pages when he is in doubt.

It has been shown, however, that all these modern individuals with whom we have to do come from a common stock, except little Frank Miner, who could only boast of a connection by marriage. For it was a good stock, and the families of all the women who had married into it were proud of it, and some of them were glad to speak of it when they had a chance. None of the Lauderdales had ever come to any great distinction, it is true, except Robert, by his fabulous wealth. But none of them had ever done anything dishonourable either, nor even approaching it. There had not even been a divorce in the family. Some of the men had fought in the war, and one had been killed, and, through Robert, the name was a power in the country. It was said that there had never been any wild blood in the family either, until Ralph married Miss Mainwaring, and that John Ralston got all his faults from his grandmother. But that may or may not be true, seeing that no one knows much of the early youth of the primeval Alexander before he came to this country.

It is probably easier for a man to describe a man than a woman. The converse may possibly be true also. Men see men, on the whole, very much as they are, each man being to each other an assemblage of facts which can be catalogued and referred to. But most men receive from woman an indefinite and perhaps undefinable impression, besides, and sometimes altogether at variance with what is merely visible. It is very hard to convey any idea of that impression to a third person, even in the actual presence of the woman described; it is harder still when the only means are the limited black and white of printed English.

Katharine Lauderdale, at least, had a fair share of beauty of a certain typical kind, a general conception of which belongs to everybody, but her aunt Katharine had not even that. No one ever called Katharine Ralston beautiful, and yet no one had ever classed her among pretty girls when she had been young. Between the two, between prettiness and beauty, there is a debatable country of brown-skinned, bright-eyed, swift-like women of aquiline feature, and sometimes of almost man-like energy, who succeed in the world, and are often worshipped for three things—their endurance, their smile and their voice. They are women who by laying no claim to the immunities of womanhood acquire a direct right to consideration for their own sakes. They also may often possess that mysterious gift known as charm, which is incomparably more valuable than all the classic beauty and perfection of colouring which nature can accumulate in one individual. Beauty fades; wit wears out; but charm is not evanescent.

Katharine Ralston had it, and sometimes wondered what it was, and even tried to understand herself by determining clearly what it was not. But for the most part she thought nothing about it, which is probably the best rule for preserving it, if it needs any sort of preservation.

Outwardly, her son strongly resembled her. He had from her his dark complexion, his lean face and his brown eyes, as well as a certain grace of figure and a free carriage of the head which belong to the pride of station—a little exaggerated—which both mother and son possessed in a high degree. Katharine Ralston did not talk of her family, but she believed in it, as something in which it was good to believe from the bottom of her heart, and she had brought up John to feel that he came from a stock of gentlemen and gentlewomen who might be bad, but could not be mean, nor anything but gentle in the vague, heraldic sense of that good word.

She was a sensible woman and saw her son’s faults. They were not small, by any means, nor insignificant by their nature, nor convenient faults for a young gentleman about town, who had the reputation of having tried several occupations and of having failed with quite equal brilliancy in all. But they were not faults that estranged him from her, though she suffered much for his sake in a certain way. She would rather have had him a drunkard, a gambler, almost a murderer, than have seen him turn out a hypocrite. She would far rather have seen him killed before her than have known that he had ever lied to save himself, or done any of the mean little sins, for which there may be repentance here and forgiveness hereafter, but from the pollution of which honour knows no purification.

Religion she had none whatever, and frankly owned the fact if questioned directly. But she made no profession of atheism and gave no grounds for her unbelief. She merely said that she could not believe in the existence of the soul, an admission which at once settled all other kindred points, so far as she was concerned. But she regretted her own position. In her childhood, her ideas had been unsettled by the constant discussions which took place between her parents. Her father, like all the Lauderdales, had been a Presbyterian. Her mother had been an Episcopalian, and, moreover, a woman alternately devout and doubting. Katharine shared neither the prejudices nor the convictions of either. Then she had married Admiral Ralston, a man, like many officers of the Navy, of considerable scientific acquirements, and full to overflowing of the scientific arguments against religion, which were even more popular in his day than they are now. What little hold the elder Katharine had still possessed upon an undefined future state was finally destroyed by her sailor husband’s rough, sledge-hammer arguments. In the place of religion she set up a sort of code of honour to which she rigidly adhered, and in the observance of which she brought up her only son.

It is worth remarking that until he finally left college she encouraged him to be religious, if he would, and regularly took him to church so long as he was a boy. She even persuaded his father not to talk atheism before him; and the admiral, who was as conservative as only republicans can be, was quite willing to let the young fellow choose for himself what he should believe or reject when he should come to years of discretion. Up to the age of twenty-one, Jack had been a remarkably sober and thoughtful young fellow. He began to change soon after his father died.

Ralston let himself in with his key when he got home and went upstairs, supposing that his mother was out, as she usually was at that hour. She heard his footstep, however, as he passed the door of her own sitting-room, on the first landing, and having no idea that anything was wrong, she called to him.

“Is that you, Jack?”

Ralston stopped and in the dusk of the staircase realized for the first time that he was not sober. He made an effort when he spoke, answering through the closed door.

“It’s all right, mother; I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

Something unusual in the tone of his voice must have struck Mrs. Ralston. He had made but two steps forward when she opened the door, throwing the light full upon him.

“What’s the matter, Jack?” she asked, quietly.

Then she saw his face, the deep lines, the drawn expression, the shadows under the eyes and the unnatural dull light in the eyes themselves. And in the same glance she saw that his hat was battered and that his clothes were dusty and stained. She knew well enough that he drank more than was good for him, but she had never before seen him in such a state. The broad daylight, too, and the disorder of his clothes made him look much more intoxicated than he really was. Katharine Ralston stood still in silence for a moment, and looked at her son. Her face grew a little pale just before she spoke again.

“Are you sober enough to take care of yourself?” she asked rather harshly, for there was a dryness in her throat.

John Ralston was no weakling, and was, moreover, thoroughly accustomed to controlling his nerves, as many men are who drink habitually—until the nerves themselves give way. He drew himself up and felt that he was perfectly steady before he answered in measured tones.

“I’m sorry you should see me just now, mother. I had a little accident, and I took some whiskey afterwards to steady me. It has gone to my head. I’m very sorry.”

That was more than enough for his mother. She came swiftly forward, and gently took him by the arm to lead him into her room. But Ralston’s sense of honour was not quite satisfied.

“It’s partly my fault, mother. I had been taking other things before, but I was all right until the accident happened.”

Mrs. Ralston smiled almost imperceptibly. She was glad that he should be so honest, even when he was so far gone. She led him through the door into her own room, and made him sit down in a comfortable chair near the window.

“Never mind, Jack,” she said, “I’m just like a man about understanding things. I know you won’t do it again.”

But Ralston knew his own weakness, and made no rash promises then, though a great impulse arose in his misty understanding, bidding him then and there make a desperately solemn vow, and keep it, or do away with himself if he failed. He only bowed his head, and sat down, as his mother bid him. He was ashamed, and he was a man to whom shame was particularly bitter.

Mrs. Ralston got some cold water in a little bowl, and bathed his forehead, touching him as tenderly as she would have touched a sick child. He submitted readily enough, and turned up his brows gratefully to her hand.

“Your head is a little bruised,” she said. “Were you hurt anywhere else? What happened? Can you tell me now, or would you rather wait?”

“Oh, it was nothing much,” answered Ralston, speaking more easily now. “There was a boy, with a perambulator, getting between the cars and carts. I got him out of the way, and tumbled down, because there wasn’t even time to jump. I threw myself after the boy—somehow. The wheel took off the heel of my boot, but I wasn’t hurt. I’m all right now. Thank you, mother dear. There never was anybody like you to understand.”

Mrs. Ralston was very pale again, but John could not see her face.

“Don’t risk such things, Jack,” she said, in a low voice. “They hurt one badly.”

Ralston said nothing, but took her hand and kissed it gently. She pressed his silently, and touched his matted hair with her tightly shut lips. Then he got up.

“I’ll go to my room, now,” he said. “I’m much better. It will be all gone in half an hour. I suppose it was the shaking,—but I did swallow a big dose after my tumble.”

“Say nothing more about it, my dear,” answered Mrs. Ralston, quietly.

She turned from him, ostensibly to set the bowl of water upon a table. But she knew that he could not be perfectly himself again in so short a time, and if he was still unsteady, she did not wish to see it—for her own sake.

“Thank you, mother,” he said, as he left the room.

She might have watched him, if she had chosen to do so, and she would have seen nothing unusual now—nothing but his dusty clothes and the slight limp in his gait, caused by the loss of one low heel. He was young, and his nerves were good, and he had a very strong incentive in the shame he still felt. Moreover, under ordinary circumstances, even the quantity he had drunk would not have produced any visible bodily effect on him, however it might have affected his naturally uncertain temper. It was quite true that the fall and the excitement of the accident had shaken him.

He reached his own room, shut the door, and then sat down to look at himself in the glass, as men under the influence of drink very often do, for some mysterious reason. Possibly the drunken man has a vague idea that he can get control over himself by staring at his own image, and into the reflection of his own eyes. John Ralston never stayed before the mirror longer than was absolutely necessary, except when he had taken too much.

But to-day he was conscious that, in spite of appearances, he was rapidly becoming bodily sober. If it had all happened at night, he would have wound up at a club, and would probably have come home in the small hours, in order to be sure of not finding his mother downstairs, and he would have been in a very dubious condition. But the broad light, the cold water, his profound shame and his natural nerve had now combined to restore him, outwardly at least, and so far as he was conscious, to his normal state.

He bathed, looked at the clock, and saw that it was not yet five, and then dressed himself as though to go out. But, before doing so, he sat down and smoked a cigarette. He felt nervously active now, refreshed and able to face anything. Before he had half finished smoking he had made up his mind to show himself to his mother and then to go for a walk before dinner.

He glanced once more at the mirror to assure himself that he was not mistaken, and was surprised at the quick change in his appearance. His colour had come back, his eyes were quiet, the deeper lines were gone from his face—lines which should never have been there at five and twenty. He turned away, well pleased, and went briskly down the stairs, though it was already growing dark, and the steps were high. After all, he thought, it was probably the loss of the heel from his shoe that had made him walk unsteadily. Such an absurd accident had never happened to him before. He knocked at the door of his mother’s sitting-room, and she bade him come in.

“You see, mother, it was nothing, after all,” he said, going up to her as she sat before the fire.

She looked up, saw his face, and then smiled happily.

“I’m so glad, Jack,” she answered, springing to her feet and kissing him. “You have no idea how you looked when I saw you there on the landing. I thought you were really—quite—but quite, quite, you know, my dear boy.”

She shook her head, still smiling, and holding both his hands.

“I’m going for a bit of a walk before dinner,” he said. “Then we’ll have a quiet evening together, and I shall go to bed early.”

“That’s right. The walk will do you good. You’re quite wonderful, Jack!” She laughed outright—he looked so perfectly sober. “Don’t drink any more whiskey to-day!” she added, not half in earnest.

“Never fear!” And he laughed too, without any suspicion of himself.

He walked rapidly down the street in the warm glow of the evening, heedless of the direction he took. By fate or by habit, he found himself a quarter of an hour later opposite to Alexander Lauderdale’s house. He paused, reflected a moment, then ascended the steps and rang the bell.

“Is Miss Katharine at home?” he enquired of the girl who opened the door.

“Yes, sir. She came in a moment ago.”

John Ralston entered the house without further question.