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.