CHAPTER XV.
The death of Robert Lauderdale was the news of the day, and produced a profound impression everywhere. Even the city put on, here and there, an outward token of mourning, for on every building of the many which had belonged to him, the flag, if it were flying, was half-masted. New York is a city of many flags, and the eye is accustomed to attach meaning to their position.
And people spoke with respect of the dead man, which rarely happens when the very rich are suddenly gone. He had done well with his money, and every one said so. He had been more charitable than many had guessed until those who had been helped by him began to bemoan their loss. Stories went about of his having known, personally and by name, such men as the conductors on the Elevated Road, and of his having visited them in their homes—them and many others. His death made no difference to any one in Wall Street, and every one in Wall Street was therefore prepared to praise him.
Forthwith began the speculation and gossip in regard to the will. John Ralston heard much of it, and he observed a curious tendency amongst the men at the bank to treat him with greater deference than usual.
The Ralstons had been informed of the final catastrophe early in the morning. John had immediately gone to Robert Lauderdale’s house, rather to enquire about Katharine’s condition than for any other purpose, and had thence proceeded down town. There was no reason why he should not go to the bank as usual, he thought. The dead man had only been his great-uncle, and he had determined to make Mr. Beman change his mind, and to counteract the influence of Alexander Junior. The best way to do this was to go to work as though nothing had happened. Before he had been half an hour at his desk, his friend Hamilton Bright, the junior partner in the firm, came up to him.
Hamilton Bright was a sturdy, heavily built man, five and thirty years of age, with a prosperous air—what bankers call ‘a lucky face.’ He was fair as a Saxon, pink and white of complexion, with clear, honest eyes, and quiet, resolute features. In his early youth he had gone to the West, and driven cattle in the Nacimiento Valley, had made some fortunate investments with the small fortune he had inherited, had returned to New York, gone into Beman Brothers’ bank, and in the course of a few years had been taken into the partnership. He was an extremely normal man. His only peculiarity was a sort of almost fatherly attachment to John Ralston, about which he did not reason. The shadow in his life was his love for Katharine Lauderdale, of which, for John’s sake, he had never spoken, but which he was quite unable to conceal.
He came to John’s desk and spoke to him in a low voice.
“I say, Jack,” he began, “is it true that cousin Katharine has broken her arm?”
“Yes,” answered Ralston, bending his black brows. “How did you hear it?”
“It’s got about and into the papers. There’s a paragraph about it. They say she fell downstairs.”