His sister Joan
had already been disturbed by his love of gambling with his savings.
Scrutinizing him constantly with the eye of affection, she had become
aware of a curious perversity in his temperament which caused her much
anxiety, and would have caused her still more if she had not
recognized the germs of it in her own nature. She could fancy Ralph
suddenly sacrificing his entire career for some fantastic imagination;
some cause or idea or even (so her fancy ran) for some woman seen from
a railway train, hanging up clothes in a back yard. When he had found
this beauty or this cause, no force, she knew, would avail to restrain
him from pursuit of it. She suspected the East also, and always
fidgeted herself when she saw him with a book of Indian travels in his
hand, as though he were sucking contagion from the page. On the other
hand, no common love affair, had there been such a thing, would have
caused her a moment's uneasiness where Ralph was concerned. He was
destined in her fancy for something splendid in the way of success or
failure, she knew not which.
And yet nobody could have worked harder or done better in all the
recognized stages of a young man's life than Ralph had done, and Joan
had to gather materials for her fears from trifles in her brother's
behavior which would have escaped any other eye.
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