Their eyes struggled for the mastery. Hers fell, and her voice died away. She turned, and the darkness swallowed her again.
Cranston looked deprecatingly at Ralph. "I didn't want you to learn my story here," he said. "You'd hear it soon enough down the river. I suspect my case is notorious. Very like the good Lord intended me for an object lesson," he went on, with characteristic grim irony. "Take warning from me! Good night to you, my lad!"
As an object lesson it was a failure, for Ralph fell asleep gloating upon how different Nahnya was.
XIII
OUTSIDE
Fourteen days later found Ralph in the metropolis of the Pacific. During the interim he had made the fifteen hundred miles swing around the country as laid out by David Cranston, except that instead of leaving the transcontinental train at Yewcroft and heading north for Fort Edward, he had come through to the coast. Here he meant to indulge himself in buying the gift for Nahnya. He had likewise supplies to lay in for the journey back to her. All the days and nights of the way out he had little to do but plan the details of the return trip. By this time all the meagre details of the published maps of that country were transferred to his brain.
Ralph's first act in town was to visit the government assay office. His dust amounted to close on two thousand dollars. Thereafter in his peregrinations through the streets a pair of sharp eyes followed his every movement. When Ralph made purchases in a store the eyes affected to be examining goods at a nearby counter; when he ate a meal in a restaurant the eyes watched him over the top of a menu card from the table behind; when he returned to the railway station and bought a ticket for Yewcroft and a berth on next day's train, the eyes next in line bought the same kind of ticket and booked a berth in the same car.
Not until they had satisfied themselves that Ralph was safe in his hotel room for the night did the eyes relax their watch on him. Then they looked for a taxi-cab. These eyes were what is known as mouse colour, which is not the colour of any breed of mouse, but a kind of yellowish gray. They were fixed in the head of a little nervous man with a sickly complexion of a lighter yellowish gray; mouse-coloured hair that stuck out in different directions, and a moustache to match, with drooping ends, ragged from being gnawed.
He had himself carried in the taxicab to an imposing residence in the west end of town. The name that he sent in was John Stack. After a certain wait the owner of the residence received him in his library. This was a Captain of Industry, rosy with fat living and nonchalant with money.
"Well, Stack, what do you want at this time o' night?" he said with good-natured insolence.