Alban declared quite frankly that he had noticed nothing whatever. Not for a fortune would he have declared his heart to this man, the hopes, the perplexities, and the self-reproach which had attended ever these early weeks in wonderland. Just as Anna's shrewdness had perceived, so was it the truth that an image of perfect womanhood dazzled his imagination and left him without any clear perception whatever. For little Lois of the slums he had a sterling affection, begotten of long association and of mutual sympathy—but the vision of Anna had been the beatification of his love dream, so to speak, deceiving him by its immense promise and leading him to credit Gessner's daughter with all those qualities of womanhood which stood nearest to his heart's desire. Here was a Lois become instantly more beautiful, more refined, more winning. If he remained true to the little friend of his boyish years, his faith had been obscured for a moment by this superb apparition of a young girl's beauty, enshrined upon the altar of riches and endowed with those qualities which wealth alone could purchase. Anna, indeed, held him for a little while spellbound, and now he listened to Forrest as though a heresy against all women were spoken.

"I did not know you were engaged," he said quite frankly. "Anna certainly has never told me. Of course, I congratulate you. She is a very beautiful girl, Forrest."

"That's true, old chap. You might see her in the paddock and pick her at a glance—eh, what? But it's mum at present—not a whistle to the old man until the south wind blows. And don't you tell Anna either. She'd marry somebody else if she thought I was really in love with her—eh, what?"

Alban shrugged his shoulders but had nothing to say. They had now come to the famous Achilles Statue in Hyde Park, and there they walked for half an hour amidst the showily dressed women on the lawn. Willy Forrest was known to many of these and everywhere appeared sure of a familiar welcome. The very men, who would tell you aside that he was a "wrong 'un," nodded affably to him and sometimes stopped to ask him what was going to win the Oaks. He patronized a few pretty girls with condescending recognition and immediately afterwards would relate to Alban the more intimate and often scandalous stories of their families. At a later moment they espied Anna herself in a superb victoria drawn by two strawberry roans. And to their intense astonishment they perceived that she had the Reverend Silas Geary in the carriage by her side.

"A clever little devil, upon my soul," said the Captain, ecstatically, "to cart that fire-escape round and show him to the crowd. She must have done it to annoy me—eh, what? She thinks I'm not so much an angel as I look and is going to make me good. Oh, my stars—let's get. I shall be saying the catechism if I stop here any longer."



CHAPTER XIII

ALBAN REVISITS UNION STREET

Alban escaped from the Sporting Club at a quarter to eleven, sick of its fetid atmosphere and wearied by its mock brutalities. He made no apologies for quitting Willy Forrest—for, truth to tell, that merry worthy was no longer capable of understanding them. Frequent calls for whisky-and-soda, added to a nice taste for champagne at dinner, left the Captain in that maudlin condition in which a man is first cousin to all the world—at once garrulous and effusive and generally undesirable. Alban had, above all things, a contempt for a drunken man; and leaving Forrest to the care of others of his kind, he went out into the street and made his way slowly eastward.

It was an odd thing to recall; but he had hardly set foot east of the Temple, he remembered, since the day when the bronze gates of Richard Gessner's house first closed upon him and the vision of wonderland burst upon his astonished eyes. The weeks had been those of unending kindness, of gifts showered abundantly, of promises for the future which might well overwhelm him by their generosity. Let him but consent to claim his rights, Gessner had said, and every ambition should be gratified. No other explanation than that of a lagging justice could he obtain—and no other had he come to desire. If he remained at Hampstead, the image of Anna Gessner, of a perfect womanhood as he imagined it, kept him to the house. He did not desire his patron's money; he began to discover how few were his wants and how small the satisfaction of their gratification could be. But the image he worshipped ever—and at its feet all other desires were forgotten.

And now reality had come with its sacrilegious hand, warring upon the vision and bidding him open his eyes and see. It was easy enough to estimate this adventurer Willy Forrest at his true worth, less easy to bind the wounds imagination had received and to set the image once more upon its ancient pedestal. Could he longer credit Anna with those qualities with which his veneration had endowed her? Must there not be heart searchings and rude questionings, the abandonment of the dream and the stern corrections of truth? He knew not what to think. A voice of reproach asked him if he also had not forgotten. The figure of little Lois Boriskoff stood by him in the shadows, and he feared to speak with her lest she should accuse him.

Let it be said in justice that he had written to Lois twice, and heard but lately that she had left Union Street and gone, none knew whither. His determination to do his utmost for her and her father, to bid them share his prosperity and command him as they would, had been strong with him from the first and delayed only by the amazing circumstances of his inheritance. He did not understand even yet that he had the right to remain at "Five Gables," but this right had so often been insisted upon that he began at last to believe in its reality and to accept the situation as a chose jugee. And with the conviction, there came an intense longing to revisit the old scenes—who knows, it may have been but the promptings of a vanity after all.

It was a great thing, indeed, to be walking there in the glare of the lamps and telling himself that fortune and a future awaited him, that the instrument of mighty deeds would be his inheritance, and that the years of his poverty were no more. How cringingly he had walked sometimes in the old days when want had shamed him and wealth looked down upon him with contempt. To-night he might stare the boldest in the face, nurse fabulous desires and know that they would be gratified, peer through the barred windows of the shops and say all he saw was at his command. A sense of might and victory attended his steps. He understood what men mean when they say that money is power and that it rules the world.

He turned eastward, and walking with rapid strides made his way down the Strand and thence by Ludgate Circus to Aldgate and the mean streets he knew so well. It was nearly midnight when he arrived there, and yet he fell in with certain whom he knew and passed them by with a genial nod. His altered appearance, the black overcoat and the scarf which hid his dress clothes, called for many a "Gor blime" or "Strike me dead." Women caught his arm and wrestled with him, roughs tried to push him from the pavement and were amazed at his good humor. In Union Street he first met little red-haired Chris Denham and asked of her the news. She shrank back from him as though afraid, and answered almost in a whisper.

"Lois gone—she went three weeks ago. I thought you'd have know'd it—I thought you was sweet on her, Alban. And now you come here like that—what's happened to you, whatever have you been doing of?"

He told her gaily that he had found new friends.

"But I haven't forgotten the old ones, Chris, and I'm coming down to see you all some day soon. How's your mother—what's she doing now?"

The girl shrugged her shoulders and the glance she turned upon him seemed to say that she would sooner speak on any other subject.

"What should she be doin'—what's any of us doin' but slave our bones off and break our hearts. You've come to see Lois' father, haven't you? Oh, yes, I know how much you want to talk about my mother. The old man's up there in the shop—I saw him as I came by."

Alban stood an instant irresolute. How much he would have liked to offer some assistance to this poor girl, to speak of real pecuniary help and friendship. But he knew the people too well. The utmost delicacy would be necessary.

"Well," he said, "I'm sorry things are not better, Chris. I've had a good Saturday night, you see, and if I can do anything, don't you mind letting me know. We'll talk of it when we have more time. I'm going on to see Boriskoff now, and I doubt that I'll find him out of bed."

She laughed a little wildly, still turning almost pathetic eyes upon him.

"Is it true that it's all off between you and Lois—all the Court says it is. That's why she went away, they say—is it true, Alb, or are they telling lies? I can't believe it myself. You're not the sort to give a girl over—not one that's stood by you as well as Lois. Tell me it ain't true or I shall think the worse of you."

The question staggered him and he could not instantly answer it. Was it true or false? Did he really love little Lois and had he still an intention to marry her? Alban had never looked the situation straight in the face until this moment.

"I never tell secrets," he exclaimed a little lamely, and turning upon his heel, he shut his ears to the hard laugh which greeted him and went on, as a man in a dream, to old Boriskoff's garret. A lamp stood in the window there and the tap of a light hammer informed him that the indefatigable Pole was still at work. In truth, old Paul was bending copper tubing—for a firm which said that he had no equal at the task and paid him a wage which would have been despised by a crossing-sweeper.

Alban entered the garret quietly and was a little startled by the sharp exclamation which greeted him. He knew nothing, of course, of the part this crafty Pole had played or what his own change of circumstance owed to him. To Alban, Paul Boriskoff was just the same mad revolutionary as before—at once fanatic and dreamer and, before then, the father of Lois who had loved him. If the old fellow had no great welcome for the young Englishman to-night, let that be set down to his sense of neglect and, in some measure, to his daughter's absence.

"Good evening, Mr. Boriskoff, you are working very late to-night."

Alban stood irresolute at the door, watching the quick movements of the shaggy brows and wondered what had happened to old Paul that he should be received so coolly. Had he known what was in the Pole's mind he would have as soon have jumped off London Bridge as have braved the anger of one who judged him so mercilessly in that hour. For Boriskoff had heard the stories which Hampstead had to tell, and he had said, "He will ruin Lois' life and I have put the power to do so in his hands."

"The poor do not choose their hours, Alban Kennedy. Sit down, if you please, and talk to me. I have much to say to you."

He did not rise from his chair, but indicated a rude seat in the corner by the chimney and waited until his unwilling guest had taken it. Alban judged that his own altered appearance and his absence from Union Street must be the cause of his displeasure. He could guess no other reason.

"Do you love my daughter, Alban Kennedy?"

"You know that I do, Paul. Have we not always been good friends? I came to tell you about a piece of great good fortune which has happened to me and to find out why Lois had not written to me. You see for yourself that there is a great change in me. One of the richest men in London considers that I have a claim, to some of his money—through some distant relative, it appears—and I am living at his house almost as his own son."

"Is that why you forget your old friends so quickly?"

"I have never forgotten them. I wrote to Lois twice."

"Did you speak of marriage in your letters?"

The lad's face flushed crimson. He knew that he could not tell Paul Boriskoff the truth.

"I did not speak of marriage—why should I?" he exclaimed; "it was never your wish that we should speak of it until Lois is twenty-one. She will not be that for more than three years—why do you ask me the question to-night?"

"Because you have learned to love another woman."

A dead silence fell in the room. The old man continued to tap gently upon the coil of tube, rapidly assuming a fantastic shape under the masterly touch of a trained hand. A candle flickered by him upon a crazy table where stood a crust of bread and a lump of coarse cheese. Not boastfully had he told Richard Gessner that he would accept nothing for himself. He was even poorer than he had been six weeks ago when he discovered that his old enemy was alive.



"You love another woman, Alban Kennedy, and you have wished to forget my daughter. Do not say that it is not the truth, for I read it upon your face. You should be ashamed to come here unless you can deny it. Fortune has been kind to you, but how have you rewarded those for whom she has nothing? I say that you have forgotten them—been ashamed of them as they have now the right to be ashamed of you."

He put his hammer down and looked the lad straight in the face. Upon Alban's part there was an intense desire to confess everything and to tell his old friend of all those distressing doubts and perplexities which had so harassed him since he went to Hampstead. If he could have done so, much would have been spared him in the time to come. But he found it impossible to open his heart to an alien,—nor did he believe Paul Boriskoff capable of appreciating the emotions which now tortured him.

"I have never been ashamed of any of my friends," he exclaimed hotly; "you know that it is not true, Paul Boriskoff. Where are the letters which I wrote to Lois? Why has she not answered them? If I had been ashamed, would they have been written? Cannot you understand that all which has happened to me has been very distracting. I have seen a new life—a new world, and it is not as our world. Perhaps there is no more happiness in it than in these courts and alleys where we have suffered so much. I cannot tell you truly. It is all too new to me and naturally I feel incapable of judging it. When I came to you to-night it was to speak of our old friendship. Should I have done so if I had forgotten?"

Old Paul heard him with patience, but his anger none the less remained. The shaggy eyebrows were at rest now, but the eyes were never turned from Alban's face.

"You are in love with Anna Gessner," he said quietly; "why do you not tell Lois so?"

"I cannot tell her so—it would not be true. She will always be the same little Lois to me, and when she is twenty-one I will marry her."

"Ha—when she is twenty-one. That seems a long time off to one who is your age. You will marry her, you say—a promise to keep her quiet while you make love to this fine lady who befools you. No, Alban Kennedy, I shall not let Lois imagine any such thing; I shall tell her the truth. She will choose another husband—that is my wish and she will obey it."

"You are doing me a great injustice, Paul Boriskoff. I do not love Anna—perhaps for a moment I thought that I did, but I know now that I was deceiving myself. She is not one who is worthy of being loved. I believed her very different when first I went to Hampstead."

"Tell me no such thing. I am an old man and I know men's hearts. What shall my daughter and her rags be to you now that you have fine clothes upon your back? You are as the others—you have knelt down at the shrine of money and there you worship. This woman in her fine clothes—she is your idol. All your past is forgotten immediately you see her. A great gulf is set between you and us. Think not that I do not know, for there are those who bring me the story every day. You worship Anna Gessner, but you live in a fool's paradise, for the father will forbid you to marry her. I say it and I know. Be honest and speak to my daughter as I have spoken to you to-night."

He raised his hammer as though he would resume his work, and Alban began to perceive how hopeless an argument would be with him while in such a mood. Not deficient in courage, the lad could not well defend himself from so direct an attack, and he had the honesty to admit as much.

"I shall tell Lois the truth," he said: "she will then judge me and say whether you are right or wrong. I came here to-night to see if I could help you both. You know, Paul Boriskoff, how much I wish to do so. While I have money, it is yours also. Have not Lois and I always been as your children? You cannot forbid me to act as a son should, just because I have come into my inheritance. Let me find you a better home and take you away from this dismal place. Then I shall be doing right to worship money. Will you not let me do so? There is nothing in life half so good as helping those we love—I am sure of it already, and it is only five weeks since I came into my inheritance. Give me the right and let me still call you father."

Old Paul was much affected, but he would not let the lad see as much. Avoiding the question discreetly but not unkindly, he muttered, "No, no, I need no help. I am an old man and what happens to me does not matter." And then turning the subject swiftly, he asked, "Your patron, he has left England, has he not?"

"He has gone to Paris, I believe."

"Did he speak of the business that took him there?"

"He never speaks of business to me. He has asked me once or twice about the poor people down here and I have tried to tell him. Such a fortune as his could redeem thousands of lives, Paul. I have told him that when he spoke to me."

"Such a man will never redeem one life. All the money in the world will never buy him rest. He has eaten his harvest and the fields are bare. Did you mention my name to him?"

"I do not think that I have done so yet."

"Naturally, you would have been a little ashamed to speak of us. It is very rarely that one who becomes rich remembers those who were poor with him. His money only teaches him to judge them. Those who were formerly his friends are now spendthrifts, extravagant folk who should not be injured by assistance. The rich man makes their poverty an excuse for deserting them, and he cloaks his desertion beneath lofty moral sentiments. You are too young to do so, but the same spirit is already leading you. Beware of it, Alban Kennedy, for it will lead you to destruction."

Alban did not know how to argue with him. He resented the accusation hotly and yet could make no impression of resentment upon the imagined grievance which old Paul nursed almost affectionately. It were better, he thought, to hold his tongue and to let the old man continue.

"Your patron has gone to Paris, you say? Are you sure it is to Paris?"

"How could I be sure. I am telling you what was told to me. He is to be back in a few days' time. It is not to be expected that he would share his plans with me."

"Certainly not—he would tell you nothing. Do you know that he is a Pole, Alban?"

"A Pole? No! Indeed he gives it out that he was born in Germany and is now a naturalized British subject."

"He would do so, but he is a Pole—and because he is a Pole he tells you that he has gone to Paris when the truth is that he is at Berlin all the time."

"But why should he wish to deceive me, Paul—what am I to him?"

"You are one necessary to his salvation—perhaps it is by you alone that he will live. I could see when I first spoke to you how much you were astonished that I knew anything about it, but remember, every Pole in London knows all about his fellow-countrymen, and so it is very natural that I know something of Richard Gessner. You who live in his house can tell me more. See what a gossip I am where my own people are concerned. You have been living in this man's house and you can tell me all about it—his tastes, his books, his friends. There would be many friends coming, of course?"

"Not very many, Paul, and those chiefly city men. They eat a great deal and talk about money. It's all money up there—the rich, the rich, the rich—I wonder how long I shall be able to stand it."

"Oh, money's a thing most people get used to very quickly. They can stand a lot of it, my boy. But are there not foreigners at your house—men of my own country?"

"I have never seen any—once, I think, Mr. Gessner was talking to a stranger in the garden and he looked like a foreigner. You don't think I would spy upon him Paul?"

"That would be the work of a very ungrateful fellow. None the less, if there are foreigners at Hampstead—I should wish to know of it."

"You—and why?"

"That I may save your kind friend from certain perils which I think are about to menace him. Yes, yes, he has been generous to you and I wish to reward him. He must not know—he must never hear my name in the matter, but should there be strangers at Hampstead let me know immediately—write to me if you cannot come here. Do not delay or you may rue it to the end of your days. Write to me, Alban, and I shall know how to help your friend."

He had spoken under a spell of strong excitement, but his message delivered, he fell again to his old quiet manner; and having exchanged a few commonplaces with the astonished lad plainly intimated that he would be alone. Alban, surprised beyond measure, perceived in his turn that no amount of questioning would help him to a better understanding; and so, in a state of perplexity which defied expression, he said "Good night" and went out into the quiet street.



CHAPTER XIV

THERE ARE STRANGERS IN THE CAVES

It was some time after midnight when Alban reached Broad Street Station and discovered that the last train for Hampstead had left. A certain uneasiness as to what his new friends would think of him did not deter him from his sudden determination to turn westward and seek out his old haunts. He had warned Richard Gessner that no house would ever make a prisoner of him, and this quick desire for liberty now burned in his veins as a fever. It would be good, he thought, to sleep under the stars once more and to imagine himself that same Alban Kennedy who had not known whither to look for bread—could it be but five short weeks ago!

The city was very still as he passed through it and, save for a broken-down motor omnibus with a sleepy conductor for its guardian, Cheapside appeared to be almost destitute of traffic. The great buildings, wherein men sought the gold all day, were now given over to watchmen and the rats, as the bodies of the seekers would one day be given over to the earth whence they sprang. Alban depicted a great army of the servants of money asleep in distant homes, and he could not but ask what happiness they carried there, what capacities for rest and true enjoyment.

Was it true, as he had begun to believe, that the life of pleasure had cares of its own, hardly less supportable than those which crushed the poor to the very earth? Was the daily round of abundance, of lights and music and wine and women—was it but the basest of shams, scarce deceiving those who practised it? His brief experience seemed to answer the question in the affirmative. He wondered if he had known such an hour of true happiness as that which had come to him upon the last night he had spent in the Caves. Honesty said that he had not—and to the Caves he now turned as one who would search out forgotten pleasures.

The building in St. James' Street had made great advance since last he saw it, but he observed to his satisfaction that the entrance to the subterranean passages were not absolutely closed, and he did not doubt that many of the old night-hawks were still in possession. His astonishment, therefore, was considerable when, upon dropping into the first of the passages, a figure sprang up and clutched him by the throat, while a hand thrust a lantern into his face and a pair of black eyes regarded him with amazed curiosity.

"A slap-up toff, so help me Jimmy! And what may your Royal Highness be doing this way—what brings you to this pretty parlor? Now, speak up, my lad, or it will go queer with you."

Alban knew in an instant—his long experience taught him—that he had fallen into the hands of the police, and his first alarms were very real.

"What right have you to question me?"

"Oh, we'll show our right sharp enough. Now, you be brisk—what's your name and what are you doing here?"

"I am the son of Mr. Richard Gessner of Hampstead and I used to know this place. I came down to have a look at it before the building is finished. If you doubt me, let us go to Mr. Gessner's house together and he will tell you who I am."

It was a proud thing to say and he said it with pride. That thrill of satisfaction which attends a fine declaration of identity came to Alban then as it has done to many a great man in the hour of his vanity. The son of Richard Gessner—yes, his patron would acknowledge him for that! The police themselves admitted the title by almost instant capitulation.

"Well, sir, it's a queer place to come to, I must say, and not very safe either for a gentleman in your position. Why didn't you ask one of us to bring you down? We'd have done it right enough, though not to-night perhaps."

"Then you're out on business?"

"You couldn't have guessed better, sir. We're here with the nets and there will be herrings to salt in the morning. If you care to wait five minutes, you may look into the bundle. Here's two or three of them coming along now and fine music they're making, I must say. Just step aside a minute, sir, while we give a hand. That's a woman's voice and she's not been to the Tabernacle. I shouldn't wonder if it was the flower girl that hobnobs with the parson—oh, by no means, oh dear, no."

He raised his lantern and turned the light of it full on the passage, disclosing a spectacle which brought a flush of warm blood to Alban's cheeks and filled him with a certain sense of shame he could not defend. For there were three of his old friends, no others than Sarah and the Archbishop of Bloomsbury with the boy "Betty," the latter close in the custody of the police who dragged him headlong, regardless of the girl's shrieks and the ex-clergyman's protests upon their cruelty. For an instant Alban was tempted to flee the place, to deny his old friends and to surrender to a base impulse of his pride; but a better instinct saving him, he intervened boldly and immediately declared himself to the astonished company.

"These people are friends of mine," he said, to the complete bewilderment of the constables, "please to tell me why you are charging them?"

"Gawd Almighty—if it ain't Mr. Kennedy!"—this from the woman.

"Indeed," said the clergyman, with a humility foreign to him, "I am very glad to see you, Alban. Our friend 'Betty' here is accused of theft. I am convinced—I feel assured that the charge is misplaced and that you will be able to help us. Will you not tell these men that you know us and can answer for our honesty?"

The lad "Betty" said nothing at all. His eyes were very wide open, a heavy hand clutched his ragged collar, and the police stood about him as though in possession of a convicted criminal.

"A young lad, sir, that stole a gold match-box from a gentleman and has got it somewhere about him now. Stand up, you young devil—none of your blarney. Where's the box now and what have you done with it?"

"I picked it up and give it to Captain Forrest—so help me Gawd, it's true. Arst him if I didn't."

The sergeant laughed openly at the story.

"He run two of our men from the National Sporting right round Covent Garden and back, sir," he said to Alban. "The gentleman dropped the box and couldn't wait. But we'll see about all that in the morning."

"If you mean Captain Forrest of the Trafalgar Club, I have just left him," interposed Alban, quickly; "this lad has been known to me for some years and I am positively sure he is not a thief. Indeed, I will answer for him anywhere—and if he did pick up the box, I can promise you that Captain Forrest will not prosecute."

He turned to "Betty" and asked him an anxious question.

"Is it true, Betty—did you pick up the box?"

"I picked it up and put it into the gentleman's hand. He couldn't stand straight and he dropped it again. Then a cab runner found it and some one cried 'stop thief.' I was frightened and ran away. That's the truth, Mr. Alban, if I die for it—"

"We must search you, Betty, to satisfy the officers."

"Oh, yes, sir—I'm quite willing to be searched."

He turned out all his pockets there and then, was pinched and pushed and cuffed to no avail. The indignant Sarah shaking her clothes in the sergeant's face dared him to do the same for her and to take the consequences of his curiosity. The Archbishop obligingly offered his pockets, which, as he said, were open at all times to the inspection of his Majesty's authorized servants. A few words aside between Alban and the assembled police, the crisp rustle of a bank-note in the darkness, helped conviction to a final victory. There were other ferrets in that dark warren and bigger game to be had.

"Well, sir," said the sergeant, "if you'll answer for Captain Forrest—and he'll want a lot of answering for to-night—I'll leave the lad in your hands. But don't let me find any of 'em down here again, or it will go hard with them. Now, be off all of you, for we have work to do. And mind you remember what I say."

It was a blessed release and all quitted the place without an instant's delay. Out in the open street, the Archbishop of Bloomsbury took Alban aside and congratulated him upon his good fortune.

"So your old friend Boriskoff has found you a job?" he said, laying a patronizing hand on the lad's stout shoulder. "Well, well, I knew Richard Gessner when I was—er—hem—on duty in Kensington, and in all matters of public charity I certainly found him to be an example. You know, of course, that he is a Pole and that his real name is Maxim Gogol. General Kaulbars told me as much when he was visiting England some years ago. Your friend is a Pole who would find himself singularly inconvenienced if he were called upon to return to Poland. Believe me, how very much astonished I was to hear that you had taken up your residence in his house."

"Then you heard about it—from whom?" Alban asked.

"Oh, 'Betty' followed you, on the day the person who calls himself Willy Forrest, but is really the son of a jockey named Weston, returned from Winchester. We were anxious about you, Alban—we questioned the company into which you had fallen. I may say, indeed, that our hearths were desolate and crape adorned our spears. We thought that you had forgotten us—and what is life when those who should remember prefer to forget."

Alban answered at hazard, for he knew perfectly well what was coming. The boy "Betty," still frightened out of his wits, clung close to the skirts of the homeless Sarah and walked with her, he knew not whither. A drizzle of rain had begun to fall; the streets were shining as desolate rivers of the night—the Caves behind them stood for a house of the enemy which none might enter again. But Alban alone was silent—for his generosity had loosened the pilgrims' tongues, and they spoke as they went of a morrow which should give them bread.



CHAPTER XV

A STUDY IN INDIFFERENCE

There are many spurs to a woman's vanity, but declared indifference is surely the sharpest of them all. When Anna Gessner discovered that Alban was not willing to enroll himself in the great band of worshippers who knelt humbly at her golden shrine, she set about converting him with a haste which would have been dangerous but for its transparent dishonesty. In love herself, so far as such a woman could ever be in love at all, with the dashing and brainless jockey who managed her race-horses, she was quite accustomed, none the less, to add the passionate confessions and gold-sick protestations of others to her volume of amatory recollections, and it was not a little amazing that a mere youth should be discovered, so obstinate, so chilly and so indifferent as to remain insensible both to her charms and their value, in what her father had called "pounds sterling."

When Alban first came to "Five Gables," his honesty amused her greatly. She liked to hear him speak of the good which her father's money could do in the slums and alleys he had left. It was a rare entertainment for her to be told of those "dreadful people" who sewed shirts all day and were frequently engaged in the same occupation when midnight came. "I shall call you the Missionary," she had said, and would sit at his feet while he confessed some of the wild hopes which animated him, or justified his desire for that great humanity of the East whose supreme human need was sympathy. Anna herself did not understand a word of it—but she liked to have those clear blue eyes fixed upon her, to hear the soft musical voice and to wonder when this pretty boy would speak of his love for her.

But the weeks passed and no word of love was spoken, and the woman in her began to ask why this should be. She was certain as she could be that her beauty had dazzled the lad when first he came to "Five Gables." She remembered what fervid glances he had turned upon her when first they met, how his eyes had expressed unbounded admiration, nay worship such as was unknown in the circles in which she moved. If this silent adoration flattered her for the moment, honesty played no little part in its success—for though there had been lovers who looked deep into her heart before, the majority carried but liabilities to her feet and, laying them there, would gladly have exchanged them for her father's cheques to salve their financial wounds. In Alban she had met for the first time a natural English lad who had no secrets to hide from her. "He will worship the ground upon which I walk," she had said in the mood of sundry novelettes borrowed from her maid. And this, in truth, the lad might very well have come to do.

But the weeks passed and Alban remained silent, and the declaration she had desired at first as an amusement now became a vital necessity to her fasting vanity. Believing that their surroundings at Hampstead, the formality, the servants, the splendor of "Five Gables," forbade that little comedy of love for which she hungered, she went off, in her father's absence, to their cottage at Henley, and compelling Alban to follow her, she played Phyllis to his Corydon with an ardor which could not have been surpassed. Aping the schoolgirl, she would wear her hair upon her shoulders, carry her gown shortened, and bare her sleeves to the suns of June. The rose garden became the arbor of her delights. "You shall love me," she said to herself—and in the determination a passion wholly vain and not a little hazardous found its birth and prospered.

For hours together now, she would compel this unconscious slave to row her in the silent reaches or to hide with her in backwaters to which the mob rarely came. Deluding him by the promise that her father was returning shortly from Paris and would come to Henley immediately upon his arrival, she led Alban to forget the days of waiting, petted him as though he had been her lover through the years, invited him a hundred times a day to say, "I love you—you shall be my wife."

In his turn, he remained silent and amazed, tempted sorely by her beauty, not understanding and yet desiring to understand why he could not love her. True, indeed, that the image of another would intervene sometimes—a little figure in rags, wan and pitiful and alone; but the environment in which the vision of the past had moved, the slums, the alleys, the mean streets, these would hedge the picture about and then leave the dreamer averse and shuddering. Not there could liberty be found again. The world must show its fields to the wanderer when again he dared it alone.

Alban remembered one night above all others of this strange seclusion, and that was a night of a woman's humiliation. There had been great bustle all day, the coming of oarsmen and of coaches to Henley, and all the aquatic renaissance which prefaces the great regatta. Their own cottage, lying just above the bridge with a shady garden extending to the water's edge, was no longer the place apart that it had been. Strangers now anchored a little way from their boat-house and consumed monstrous packets of sandwiches and the contents of abundant bottles. There were house-boats being tugged up and down the river, little groups of rowing men upon the bridge all day, the music of banjos by night, and lanterns glowing in the darkness. Anna watched this pretty scene as one who would really take a young girl's part in it. She simulated an interest in the rowing about which she knew nothing at all—visited the house-boats of such of her friends as had come down for the regatta, and was, in Willy Forrest's words, as "skittish as a two-year-old that had slipped its halter." Forrest had been to and fro from the stable near Winchester on several occasions. "He comes to tell me that I am about to lose a fortune, and I am beginning to hate him," Anna said; and on this occasion she enjoyed that diverting and unaccustomed recreation known as speaking the truth.

There had been such a visit as this upon the morning of the day when Anna spoke intimately to Alban of his future and her own. Her mood now abandoned itself utterly to her purpose. The close intimacy of these quiet days had brought her to the point where a real if momentary passion compelled her to desire this boy's love as she had never desired anything in all her life. To bring him to that declaration she sought so ardently, to feel his kisses upon her lips, to play the young lover's part if it were but for a day, to this folly her vanity had driven her. And now the opportunities for words were not denied. She had spent the afternoon in the backwaters up by Shiplake; there had been a little dinner afterwards with the old crone who served them so usefully as chaperone—a dependent who had eyes but did not see, ears which, as she herself declared, "would think scorn to listen." Amiable dame, she was in bed by nine o'clock, while Alban and Anna were lying in a punt at the water's edge, listening to the music of a distant guitar and watching the twinkling lights far away below the bridge where the boat-houses stand.

A Chinese lantern suspended upon a short boat-hook cast a deep crimson glow upon the faces of those who might well have been young lovers. The river rippled musically against the square bows of their ugly but comfortable craft. But few passed them by and those were also seekers after solitude, with no eyes for their co-religionists in the amatory gospel. Alban, wholly fascinated by the silence and the beauty of the scene, lay at Anna's feet, so full of content that he did not dare to utter his thoughts aloud. The girl caught the tiny wavelets in her outstretched hand and said that Corydon had become blind.

"Do you like Willy Forrest?" she asked, "do you think he is clever, Alban?"—a question, the answer to which would not interest her at all if it did not lead to others. Alban, in his turn, husbanding the secrets, replied evasively:

"Why should I think about him? He is not a friend of mine. You are the one to answer that, Anna. You like him—I have heard you say so."

"Never believe what a girl says. I adore Willy Forrest because he makes me laugh. I am like the poor little white rabbit which is fascinated by the great black wriggly snake. Some day it will swallow me up—perhaps on Thursday—after Ascot. I wish I could tell you. Pandora seems to have dropped everything out of her basket except the winner of the Gold Cup. If Willy Forrest is right, I shall win a fortune. But, of course, he doesn't tell the truth any more than I do."

Alban was silent a little while and then he asked her:

"Do you know much about him, Anna? Did you ever meet his people or anything?"

She looked at him sharply.

"He is the son of Sir John Forrest, who died in India. His brother was lost at sea. What made you ask me?"

He laughed as though it had not been meant.

"You say that he doesn't tell the truth. Suppose it were so about himself. He might be somebody else—not altogether the person he pretends to be. Would it matter if he were? I don't think so, Anna—I would much rather know something about a man himself than about his name."

She sat up in the punt and rested her chin upon the knuckles of her shapely hands. This kind of talk was little to her liking. She had often doubted Willy Forrest, but had never questioned his title to the name he bore.

"Have they ever told you anything about us, Alban?" she continued, "did you ever hear any stories which I should not hear?"

"Only from Captain Forrest himself; he told me that he was engaged to you. That was when I went to the Savoy Hotel."

"All those weeks ago. And you never mentioned it?"

"Was it any business of mine? What right had I to speak to you about it?"

She flushed deeply.

"A secret for a secret," she said. "When you first came to Hampstead, I thought that you liked me a little Alban. Now, I know that you do not. Suppose there were a reason why I let Willy Forrest say that he was engaged to me. Suppose some one else had been unkind when I wished him to be very kind to me. Would you understand then?"

This was in the best spirit of the coquette and yet a great earnestness lay behind it. Posing in that romantic light, the thick red lips pouting, the black eyes shining as with the clear flame of a soul awakened, the head erect as that of a deer which has heard a sound afar, this passionate little actress, half Pole, half Jewess, might well have set a man's heart beating and brought him, suppliant, to her feet. To Alban there returned for a brief instant all that spirit of homage and of awe with which he had first beheld her on the balcony of the house in St. James' Square. The cynic in him laid down his robe and stood before her in the garb of youth spellbound and fascinated. He dared to say to himself, she loves me—it is to me that these words are spoken.

"I cannot understand you, Anna," he exclaimed, tortured by some plague of a sudden memory, held back from a swift embrace he knew not by what instinct. "You say that you only let Willy Forrest call himself engaged to you. Don't you love him then—is it all false that you have told him?"

"It is quite false, Alban—I do not love him as you would understand the meaning of the word. If he says that I am engaged to him, is it true because he says it? There are some men who marry women simply because they are persevering. Willy Forrest would be one of them if I were weak enough. But I do not love him—I shall never love him, Alban."

She bent low and almost whispered the words in his ear. Her hand covered his fingers caressingly. His forehead touched the lace upon her robe and he could hear her heart beating. An impulse almost irresistible came upon him to take her in his arms and hold her there, and find in her embrace that knowledge of the perfect womanhood which had been his dream through the years. He knew not what held him back.

Anna watched him with a hope that was almost as an intoxication of doubt and curiosity. She loved him in that moment with all a young girl's ardor. She believed that the whole happiness of her life lay in the words he was about to speak.



CHAPTER XVI

THE INTRUDER

A man's voice, calling to them from the lawn, sent them instantly apart as though caught in some guilty confidence. Anna knew that something unwonted had happened and that Willy Forrest had returned.

"What has brought him back?" she exclaimed a little wildly; and then, "Don't go away, Alban, I shall want you. My father would never forgive me if he heard of it. Of course he cannot stop here."

Alban made no reply, but he helped her to the bank and they crossed the lawn together. In the light of the veranda, they recognized Forrest, carrying a motor cap in his hand and wearing a dust coat which almost touched his heels. He had evidently dined and was full of the story of his mishap.

"Hello, Anna, here's a game," he began, "my old fumigator's broke down and I'm on the cold, cold world. Never had such a time in my life. Shoved the thing from Taplow and nothing but petrol to drink—eh, what, can't you see me? I say, Anna, you'll have to put me up to-night. There isn't a billiard table to let in the town, and I can't sleep on the grass—eh, what—you wouldn't put me out to graze, now would you?"

He entered the dining-room with them, and they stood about the table while the argument was continued.

"Billy says the nag—what-d'yer-call-it's gone lame in the off fore-leg. She went down at the distance like a filly that's been hocussed. There were the two of us in the bally dust—and look at my fingers where I burned 'em with matches. After that a parson came along in a gig. I asked him if he had a whisky-and-soda aboard and he didn't quote the Scriptures. We couldn't get the blighter to move, and I ground the handle like Signor Gonedotti of Saffron Hill in the parish of High Holborn. You'd have laughed fit to split if you'd have been there, Anna—and, oh my Sammy, what a thing it is to have a thirst and to bring it home with you. Do I see myself before a mahogany one or do I not—eh, what? Do I dream, do I sleep, or is visions about? You'll put us up, of course, Anna? I've told Billy as much and he's shoving the car into the coach-house now."

He stalked across the room and without waiting to be asked helped himself to a whisky-and-soda. Anna looked quickly at Alban as though to say, "You must help me in this." Twenty-four hours ago she would not have protested at this man's intrusion, but to-night the glamor of the love-dream was still upon her, the idyll of her romance echoed in her ears and would admit no other voice.

"Willy," she said firmly, "you know that you cannot stop. My father would never forgive me. He has absolutely forbidden you the house."

He turned round, the glass still in his hand and the soda from the siphon running in a fountain over the table-cloth.

"Your father! He's in Paris, ain't he? Are we going to telegraph about it? What nonsense you are talking, Anna!"

"I am telling you what I mean. You cannot stop here and you must go to the hotel immediately."

He looked at her quite gravely, cast an ugly glance upon Alban and instantly understood.

"Oh, so that's the game. I've tumbled into the nest and the young birds are at home. Say it again, Anna. You show me the door because this young gentleman doesn't like my company. Is it that or something else? Perhaps I'll take it that the old girl upstairs is going to ask me my intentions. The sweet little Anna Gessner of my youth has got the megrims and is off to Miss Bolt-up-Right to have a good cry together—eh, what, are you going to cry, Anna? Hang me if you wouldn't give the crocodiles six pounds and a beating—eh, what, six pounds and a beating and odds on any day."

He approached her step by step as he spoke, while the girl's face blanched and her fear of him was to be read in every look and gesture. Alban had been but a spectator until this moment, but Anna's distress and the bullying tone in which she had been addressed awakened every combative instinct he possessed, and he thrust himself into the fray with a resolute determination to make an end of it.

"Look here, Forrest," he exclaimed, "we've had about enough of this. You know that you can't stop here—why do you make a fuss about it? Go over to the hotel. There's plenty of room there—they told me so this afternoon."

Forrest laughed at the invitation, but there was more than laughter in his voice when he replied:

"Thank you for your good intentions, my boy. I am very much obliged to your worship. A top-floor attic and a marble bath. Eh, what—you want to put me in a garret? I'll see you the other side of Jordan first. Oh, come, it's a nice game, isn't it? Papa away and little Anna canoodling with the Whitechapel boy. Are we downhearted? No. But I ain't going, old pal, and that's a fact."

He almost fell into an arm-chair and looked upon them with that bland air of patronage which intoxication inspires. Anna, very pale and frightened, was upon the point of summoning the servants; but Alban, wiser in his turn, forbade her to do so.

"You go to bed, Anna," he said quietly, "Captain Forrest and I will have a talk. I'm sure he doesn't expect you to sit up. Eh, Forrest, don't you think that Anna had better go?"

"By all means, old chap. Nothing like bed—I'm going myself in a minute or two. Don't you sit up, Anna. Anywhere's good enough for me. I'll sleep in the greenhouse—eh, what? Your gardener'll find a new specimen in the morning and get fits. Mind he don't prune me, though. I can't afford to lose much at my time of life. You go to bed, Anna, and dream of little Willy. He's going to make your fortune on Thursday—good old Lodestar, some of 'em'll feel the draught, you bet. Don't spoil your complexion on my account, Anna. You go to bed and keep young."

He rambled on, half good-humoredly, wholly determined in his resolution to stay. Anna had never found him obstinate or in opposition to her will before, and blazing cheeks and flashing eyes expressed her resentment at an attitude so changed.

"Alban," she said quietly, "Captain Forrest will not stay. Will you please see that he does not."

She withdrew upon the words and left the two men alone. They listened and heard her mounting the stairs with slow steps. While Forrest was still disposed to treat the matter as a joke, Alban had enough discretion to avoid a scene if it could be avoided. He was quite calm and willing to forget the insult that had been offered to him.

"Why not make an end of it, Forrest?" he said presently. "I'll go to the hotel with you—you know perfectly well that you can get a bed there. What's the good of playing the fool?"

"I was never more serious in my life, old man. Here I am and here I stay. There's no place like home—eh, what? Why should you do stunts about it? What's it to do with you after all? Suppose you think you're master here. Then give us a whisky-and-soda for luck, my boy."

"I shall not give you a whisky-and-soda and I do not consider myself the master here. That has nothing to do with it. You know that Anna wishes you to go, and go you shall. What's to be gained by being obstinate."

Forrest looked at him cunningly.

"Appears that I intrude," he exclaimed with a sudden flash which declared his real purpose, "little Anna Gessner and the boy out of Whitechapel making a match of it together—eh, what? Don't let's have any rotten nonsense, old man. You're gone on the girl and you don't want me here. Say so and be a man. You've played a low card on me and you want to see the hand out. Isn't it that? Say so and be honest if you can."

"It's a lie," retorted Alban, quietly—and then unable to restrain himself he added quickly, "a groom's lie and you know it."

Forrest, sobered in a moment by the accusation, sprang up from his chair as though stung by the lash of a whip.

"What's that," he cried, "what do you say?"

"That you are not the son of Sir John Forrest at all. Your real name is Weston—your father was a jockey and you were born at Royston near Cambridge. That's what I say. Answer it when you like—but not in this house, for you won't have the opportunity. There's the door and that's your road. Now step out before I make you."

He pointed to the open door and drew a little nearer to his slim antagonist. Forrest, a smile still upon his face, stood for an instant irresolute—then recovering himself, he threw the glass he held as though it had been a ball, and the missile, striking Alban upon the forehead, cut him as a knife would have done.

"You puppy, you gutter-snipe—I'll show you who I am. Wipe that off if you can;" and then almost shouting, he cried, "Here, Anna, come down and see what I've done to your little ewe lamb, come down and comfort him—Anna, do you hear?"

He said no more, for Alban had him by the throat, leaping upon him with the ferocity of a wild beast and carrying him headlong to the lawn before the windows. Never in his life had such a paroxysm of anger overtaken the boy or one which mastered him so utterly. Blindly he struck; his blows rained upon the cowering face as though he would beat it out of all recognition. He knew not wholly why he thus acted if not upon some impulse which would avenge the wrongs good women had suffered at the hands of such an impostor as this. When he desisted, the man lay almost insensible upon the grass at his feet—and he, drawing apart, felt the hot tears running down his face and could not restrain them.

For in a measure he felt that his very chivalry had been faithless to one who had loved him well—and in the degradation of that violent scene he recalled the spirit of the melancholy years, the atmosphere of the mean streets, and the figure of little Lois Boriskoff asking both his pity and his love.



CHAPTER XVII

FATHER AND DAUGHTER

Richard Gessner returned to Hampstead on the Friday in Ascot week and upon the following morning Anna and Alban came back from Henley. They said little of their adventures there, save to tell of quiet days upon sunny waters; nor did the shrewdest questioning add one iota to the tale. Indeed, Gessner's habitual curiosity appeared, for the time being, to have deserted him, and they found him affable and good-humored almost to the point of wonder.

It had been a very long time, as Anna declared, since anything of this kind had shed light upon the commonly gloomy atmosphere of "Five Gables." For weeks past Gessner had lived as a man who carried a secret which he dared to confess to none. Night or day made no difference to him. He lived apart, seeing many strangers in his study and rarely visiting the great bank in Lombard Street where so many fortunes lay. To Alban he was the same mysterious, occasionally gracious figure which had first welcomed him to the magnificent hospitality of his house. There were days when he appeared to throw all restraint aside and really to desire this lad's affection as though he had been his own son—other days when he shrank from him, afraid to speak lest he should name him the author of his vast misfortunes. And now, as it were in an instant, he had cast both restraint and fear aside, put on his ancient bonhomie and given full rein to that natural affection of which he was very capable. Even the servants remarked a change so welcome and so manifest.

Let it be written down as foreordained in the story of this unhappy house, that in like measure as the father recovered his self-possession, so, as swiftly, had the daughter journeyed to the confines of tragedy and learned there some of those deeper lessons which the world is ever ready to teach. Anna returned from Henley so greatly changed that her altered appearance rarely escaped remark. Defiant, reckless, almost hysterical, her unnatural gaiety could not cloak her anxiety nor all her artifice disguise it. If she had told the truth, it would have been to admit a position, not only of humiliation but of danger. A whim, by which she would have amused herself, had created a situation from which she could not escape. She loved Alban and had not won his love. The subtle antagonist against whom she played had turned her weapons adroitly and caught her in the deadly meshes of his fatal net. Not for an instant since she stood upon the lawn at Ascot and witnessed the defeat of her great horse Lodestar had she ceased to tell herself that the world pointed the finger at her and held up her name to scorn. "They say that I cheated them," she would tell herself and that estimate of the common judgment was entirely true.

It had been a great race upon a brilliant day of summer. Alban had accompanied her to the enclosure and feasted his eyes upon that rainbow scene, so amazing in its beauty, so bewildering in its glow of color that it stood, to his untrained imagination, for the whole glory of the world. Of the horses or their meaning he knew nothing at all. This picture of radiant women, laughing, feasting, flirting at the heart of a natural forest; the vast concourse of spectators—the thousand hues of color flashing in the sunshine, the stands, the music, the royal procession, the superbly caparisoned horses, the State carriages—what a spectacle it was, how far surpassing all that he had been led to expect of Money and its kingdom. Let Anna move excitedly amid the throng, laughing with this man, changing wit with another—he was content just to watch the people, to reflect upon their happy lives, it may be to ask himself what justification they had when the children were wanting bread and the great hosts of the destitute lay encamped beyond the pale. Such philosophy, to be sure, had but a short shrift on such a day. The intoxication of the scene quickly ran hot in his veins and he surrendered to it willingly. These were hours to live, precious every one of them—and who would not worship the gold which brought them, who would not turn to it as to the lodestar of desire?

And then the race! Anna had talked of nothing else since they set out in the motor to drive over to the course. Her anger against Willy Forrest appeared to be forgotten for the time being—he, on his part, eying Alban askance, but making no open complaint against him, met her in the paddock and repeated his assurances that Lodestar could not lose.

"They run him down to evens, Anna," he said, "and precious lucky we were to get the price we did. There'll be some howls to-night, but what's that to us? Are we a philanthropic society, do we live to endow the multitude? Not much, by no means, oh dear, no. We live to make an honest bit—and we'll make it to-day if ever we did. You go easy and don't butt in. I've laid all that can be got at the price and the rest's best in your pocket. You'll want a bit for the other races—eh, what? You didn't come here to knit stockings, now did you, Anna?"

She laughed with him and returned to see the race. Her excitement gave her a superb color, heightened her natural beauty and turned many admiring eyes upon her. To Alban she whispered that she was going to make a fortune, and he watched her curiously, almost afraid for himself and for her. When the great thrill passed over the stands and "they're off" echoed almost as a sound of distant thunder, he crept closer to her as though to share the excitement of which she was mistress. The specks upon the green were nothing to him—those dots of color moving swiftly across the scene, how odd to think that they might bring riches or beggary in their train! This he knew to be the stern fact, and when men began to shout hoarsely, to press together and crane their necks, when that very torrent of sound which named the distance arose, he looked again at Anna and saw that she was smiling. "She has won," he said, "she will be happy to-night."

The horses passed the post in a cluster. Alban, unaccustomed to the objects of a race-course, had not an eye so well trained that he could readily distinguish the colors or locate with certainty the position of the "pink—green sleeves—white cap"—the racing jacket of "Count Donato," as Anna was known to the Jockey Club. He could make out nothing more than a kaleidoscope of color changing swiftly upon a verdant arena, this and an unbroken line of people stretching away to the very confines of the woodlands and a rampart wall of stands and boxes and tents. For him there were no niceties of effort and of counter-effort. The jockeys appeared to be so many little monkeys clinging to the necks of wild chargers who rolled in their distress as though to shake off the imps tormenting them. The roar of voices affrighted him—he could not understand that lust of gain which provoked the mad outcry, the sudden forgetfulness of self and dignity and environment, the absolute surrender to the desire of victory. Nor was the succeeding silence less mysterious. It came as the hush in an interval of tempests. The crowd drew back from the railings and moved about as quietly as though nothing of any consequence had happened. Anna herself, smiling still, stood just where she was; but her back was now toward the winning-post and she seemed to have forgotten its existence.

"Do you know," she said very slowly, "my horse has lost."

"What does that mean?" Alban asked with real earnestness.

She laughed again, looking about her a little wildly as though to read something of the story upon other faces.

"What does it mean—oh, lots of things. I wonder if we could get a cup of tea, Alban—I think I should like one."

He said that he would see and led her across the enclosure toward the marquee. As they went a sybilant sound of hissing arose. The "Alright" had come from the weighing-in room and the people were hissing the winner. Presently, from the far side of the course, a louder outcry could be heard. That which the men in the gray frock-coats were telling each other in whispers was being told also by the mob in stentorian tones. "The horse was pulled off his feet," said the knowing ones; "they ought to warn the whole crowd off."

Anna heard these cries and began dimly to understand them. She knew that Willy Forrest had done this in return for the slight she had put upon him at Henley. He had named his own jockey for the race and chosen one who had little reputation to lose. Between them they would have reason to remember the Royal Hunt Cup for many a day. Their gains could have been little short of thirty thousand pounds—and of this sum, Anna owed them nearly five thousand.

She heard the people's cries and the sounds affrighted her. Not an Englishwoman, none the less she had a good sense of personal honor, and her pride was wounded, not only because of this affront but that a strange people should put it upon her. Had it been any individual accusation, she would have faced it gladly—but this intangible judgment of the multitude, the whispering all about her, the sidelong glances of the men and the open contempt of the women, these she could not meet.

"Let us go back to the bungalow to tea," she exclaimed suddenly, as though it were but a whim of the moment; "this place makes my head ache. Let us start now and avoid the crush. Don't you think it would be a great idea, Alban?"

He said that it would be—but chancing to look at her while she spoke, he perceived the tears gathering in her eyes and knew that she had suffered a great misfortune.

* * * * *

Richard Gessner knew nothing of Anna's racing escapades, nor had he any friend who made it his business to betray them. The day was rare when he made an inquiry concerning her amusements or the manner of them. Women were in his eyes just so many agreeable decorations for the tables at which men dined. Of their mental capacity he had no opinion whatever, and it was a common jest for him to declare their brain power consistently inferior to that of the male animal.

"There has been no woman financial genius since the world began," he would observe, and if those who contradicted him named the arts, he waved them aside. "What is art when finance is before us?" That Anna should amuse herself was well and proper. He wished her to marry well that he might have spoken of "my daughter, Lady Anna"—not with pride as most men would speak, but ironically as one far above such petty titles and able from his high place to deride them.

Of her daily life, it must be confessed that he knew very little. A succession of worthy if incompetent dependants acted the chaperones part for him and satisfied his conscience upon that score. He heard of her at this social function or at that, and was glad that she should go. Men would say, "There's a catch for you—old Gessner's daughter; he must be worth a million if he's worth a penny." Her culpable predisposition toward that pleasant and smooth-tongued rascal, Willy Forrest, annoyed him for the time being but was soon forgotten. He believed that the man would not dare to carry pursuit farther, and if he did, the remedy must be drastic.

"I will buy up his debts and send him through the Court," Gessner said. "If that does not do, we must find out his past and see where we can have him. My daughter may not marry as I wish, but if she marries a jockey, I have done with her." And this at hazard, though he had not the remotest idea who Forrest really was and had not taken the trouble to find out. When the man ceased to visit "Five Gables" he forgot him immediately. He was the very last person in all London whom he suspected when Anna, upon the day following his return from Paris, asked that they might have a little talk together and named the half-hour immediately before dinner for that purpose. He received her in his study, whither Fellows had already carried him a glass of sherry and bitters, and being in the best of good humor, he frankly confessed his pleasure that she should so appeal to him.

"Come in, Anna, come in, my dear. What's the matter now—been getting into mischief? Oh, you girls—always the same story, a man or a milliner, and the poor old father to get you out of it. What is it this time—Paquin or Worth? Don't mind me, Anna. I can always live in a cottage on a pound a week. The doctor says I should be the better for it. Perhaps I should. Half the complaints we suffer from are just 'too much.' Think that over and add it up. You look very pale, my girl. You're not ill, are you?"

The sudden change of tone occurred as Anna advanced into the light and seated herself in the bow-window overlooking the rose garden. She wore a delicate skirt of pink satin below a superb gown of chiffon and real lace. A single pink rose decorated her fine black hair which she had coiled upon her neck to betray a shapely contour of dazzlingly white skin beneath it. Her jewels were few but remarkable. The pearls about her neck had been called bronze in tint and were perfect in their shape. She carried a diamond bracelet upon her right arm, and its glitter flashed about her as a radiant spirit of the riches whose emblems she wore. The pallor of her face was in keeping with the picture. The wild black eyes seemed alight with all the fires of tragedy unconfessed.

"I am not ill, father," she said, "but there is something about which I must speak to you."

"Yes, yes, Anna—of course. And this is neither Paquin nor Worth, it appears. Oh, you little rogue. To come to me like this—to come to your poor old father and bring him a son-in-law for dinner. Ha, ha,—I'll remember that—a son-in-law to dinner. Well, I sha'n't eat him, Anna, if he's all right. It wouldn't be Alban Kennedy now?"

He became serious in an instant, putting the question as though his favor depended upon her answer in the negative. Anna, however, quite ignored the suggestion when she replied.

"I came to speak to you about Ascot, father—"

"About Ascot—who's Ascot?"

"The races at Ascot. I ran a horse there and lost five thousand pounds."

"What—you lost—come, Anna, my dear child—you lost—think of it again—you lost fifty pounds? And who the devil took you there, I want to know—who's been playing the fool? I don't agree with young girls betting. I'll have none of that sort of thing in this house. Just tell him so—whoever he is. I'll have none of it, and if it's that—"

He broke off at the words, arrested in his banter by the sudden memory of a name. As in a flash he perceived the truth. The man Forrest was at the bottom of this.

"Now be plain with me," he cried, "you've seen Willy Forrest again and this is his doing. Yes or no, Anna? Don't you tell me a lie. It's Forrest—he took you to Ascot?"

She smiled at his anger.

"I ran a horse named Lodestar under the name of Count Donato. I believed that he would win and he lost. That's the story, father. Why drag any names into it?"

He regarded her, too amazed to speak. His daughter, this bit of a schoolgirl as he persisted in calling her, she had run a race-horse in her own name? What a thing to hear! But was it an evil thing. The girl had plenty of courage certainly. Very few would have had the pluck to do it at all. Of course it was unlucky that she had not won—but, after all, that could soon be put straight.

"You ran a race-horse—but who trained it for you? where did you keep it? Why did I know nothing about it? Look here, Anna, this isn't dealing very fair with me. I have never denied you any pleasure—you know I haven't. If you wanted to play this game, why couldn't you have come to me and told me so? I wouldn't have denied you—but five thousand; you're not serious about that—you don't mean to say that you lost five thousand pounds?"

"I lost five thousand pounds, father—and I must pay the money. They will call me a cheat if I do not. It must be paid on Monday—Willy says so—"

He turned upon her with a shout that was almost a roar. She knew in an instant how foolish she had been.

"Willy Forrest—did you lose the money to him? Come, speak out. I shall get at the truth somehow—did you lose the money to him?"

"I lost it through him—he made the bets for me."

"Then I will not pay a penny of it if it sends you to prison. Not a penny as I'm a living man."

She heard him calmly and delivered her answer as calmly.

"I shall marry him if you do not," she said.

Gessner stood quite still and watched her face closely. It had grown hard and cold, the face of a woman who has taken a resolution and will not be turned from it.

"You will marry Forrest?" he asked quietly.

"I shall marry him and he will pay my debts."

"He—he hasn't got two brass pieces to rub together. He's a needy out-at-elbow adventurer. Do you want to know who William Forrest is—well, my detectives shall tell me in the morning. I'll find out all about him for you. And you'd marry him! Well, my lady, there you'll do as you please. I've done with a daughter who tells me that to my face. Go and marry him. Live in a kennel. But don't come to me for a bone, don't think I'm to be talked over, because that's not my habit. If you choose such a man as that—"

"I do not choose him. There are few I would not sooner marry. I am thinking of my good name—of our good name. If I marry Willy Forrest, they will say that I helped to cheat the public. Do you not know that it is being said already. The horse was pulled—I believe that I am not to be allowed to race again. Poor Mr. Farrier is terribly upset. They say that we were all cheats together. What can I do, father? If I pay the money and they know that we lost it, that is a good answer to them. If I do not, Willy is probably the one man who can put matters straight and I shall marry him."

She rose as though this was the end of the argument. Her words, lightly spoken, were so transparently honest that the shrewd man of business summed up the whole situation in an instant. The mere possibility that his name should be mixed up with a racing scandal staggered him by its dangers and its absurdity. Anger against his daughter became in some measure compassion. Of course she was but a woman and a clever charlatan had entrapped her.

"Sit down—sit down," he said bluffly, motioning her back to her seat. "It is perfectly clear that this William Forrest of yours is a rogue, and as a rogue we must treat him. I am astonished at what you tell me. It is a piece of nonsense, women's sense as ridiculous as the silly business which is responsible for it. Of course you must pay them the money. I will do the rest, Anna. I have friends who will quickly put that matter straight—and if your rogue finds his way to a race-course again, he is a very lucky man. Now sit down and let me speak to you in my turn, Anna. I want you to speak about Alban—I want to hear how you like him. He has now been with us long enough for us to know something about him. Let us see if your opinion agrees with mine."

His keen scrutiny detected a flush upon her face while he asked the question and he understood that all he had suspected had been nothing but the truth. Anna had come to love this open-minded lad who had been forced upon them by such an odd train of circumstances; her threats concerning Willy Forrest were the merest bravado. Gessner would have trembled at the knowledge a week ago, but to-night it found him singularly complacent. He listened to Anna's response with the air of a light-hearted judge who condemned a guilty prisoner out of her own mouth.

"Alban Kennedy has many good qualities," she said. "I think he is very worthy of your generosity."

"Ah, you like him, I perceive. Let us suppose, Anna, that my intentions toward him were to go beyond anything I had imagined—suppose, being no longer under any compulsion in the matter, the compulsion of an imaginary obligation which does not exist, I were still to consider him as my own son. Would you be surprised then at my conduct?"

"It would not surprise me," she said. "You have always wished for a son. Alban is the most original boy of his age I have ever met. He is clever and absurdly honest. I don't think you would regret any kindness you may show to him."

"And you yourself?"

"What have I to do with it, father?"

"It might concern you very closely, Anna."

"In what way, father?"

"In the only way which would concern a woman. Suppose that I thought of him as your husband?"

She flushed crimson.

"Have you spoken to him on the matter?"

"No, but being about to speak to him—after dinner to-night."

"I should defer my opinion until that has happened."

He laughed as though the idea of it amused him very much.

"Of course, he will have nothing to do with us, Anna. What is a fortune to such a fine fellow? What is a great house—and I say it—a very beautiful wife? Of course, he will refuse us. Any boy would do that, especially one who has been brought up in Union Street. Now go and look for him in the garden. I must tell Geary to have that cheque drawn out—and mind you, if I meet that fellow Forrest, I will half kill him just to show my good opinion of him. This nonsense must end to-night. Remember, it is a promise to me."

She shrugged her shoulders and left the room with slow steps. Gessner, still smiling, turned up a lamp by his writing-table and took out his cheque-book.



CHAPTER XVIII

FATE IRONICAL

They were a merry party at the dinner-table, and the Reverend Silas Geary amused them greatly by his discussion of that absorbing topic, is golf worth playing? He himself, good man, deplored the fact that several worthy persons who, otherwise, would have been working ten or twelve hours a day as Cabinet ministers, deliberately toiled in the sloughs and pits of the golf course.

"The whole nation is chasing a little ball," he said; "we deplore the advance of Germany, but, I would ask you, how does the German spend his day, what are his needs, where do his amusements lie? There is a country for you—every man a soldier, every worker an intellect. In England nowadays our young fellows seem to try and find out how little they can do. We live for minimums. We are only happy when we have struck a bat with a ball and it has gone far. We reserve our greatest honors for those who thus excel."

Alban ventured to say that beer seemed to be the recreation of the average German and insolence his amusement. He confessed that the Germans beat his own people by hard work; but he asked, is it really a good thing that work should be the beginning and the end of all things? He had been taught at school that the supreme beauty of life lay in things apart and chiefly in a man's own soul. To which Gessner himself retorted that a woman's soul was what the writer probably meant.

"We have let civilization make us what we are," the banker said shrewdly, "and now we complain of her handiwork. Write what you like about it, money and love are the only two things left in the world to-day. The story has always been the same, but people did not read it so often formerly. There have always been ambition, strife, struggle, suffering—why should the historians trouble to tell of them? You yourself, Alban, would be a worker if the opportunity came to you. I have foreseen that from the first moment I met you. If you were interested, you would outdo the Germans and beat them both with your head and your hands. But it will be very difficult to interest you. You would need some great stimulus, and in your case it would be ambition rather than its rewards."

Alban replied that a love of power was probably the strongest influence in the world.

"We all hate work," he said, repeating his favorite dictum, "I don't suppose there is one man in a thousand who would do another day's work unless he were compelled. The success of Socialism in our time is the belief that it will glorify idleness and make it real. The agitators themselves never work. They have learned the rich men's secret—I have heard them preaching the dignity of labor a hundred times, but I never yet saw one wheeling a barrow. The poor fellows who listen to them think that you have only got to pass a few acts of Parliament to be happy forever after. I pity them, but how are you to teach them that the present state of things is just—and if it is not just, why should you wish it to last?"

Gessner could answer that. A rich man himself, all that concerned the new doctrines was of the profoundest interest to him.

"The present state of things is the only state of things—in the bulk," he said; "it is as old as the world and will go on as long as the world. We grumble at our rich men, but those who have amassed their own fortunes are properly the nation's bankers. Consider what a sudden gift of money would mean to the working-men of England to-day—drunkenness, crime, debauchery. You can legislate to improve the conditions of their lives, but to give them creative brains is beyond all legislation. And I will tell you this—that once you have passed any considerable socialistic legislation for this kingdom of Great Britain, you have decided her destiny. She will in twenty years be in the position of Holland—a country that was but never will be again."

No one disputed the proposition, for no one thoroughly understood it. Alban had not the courage to debate his pet theorems at such a time, and the parson was too intent upon denouncing the national want of seriousness to enter upon such abstruse questions as the banker would willingly have discussed. So they fell back upon athletics again, and were busy with football and cricket until the time came for Anna to withdraw and leave them to their cigars. Silas Geary, quickly imitating her, waited but for a glass of port before he made his excuses and departed, as he said, upon a "parochial necessity."

"We will go to the Winter Garden," Gessner said to Alban when they were alone—"I will see that Fellows takes our coffee there. Bring some cigarettes, Alban—I wish to have a little private talk with you."

Alban assented willingly, for he was glad of this opportunity to say much that he had desired to say for some days past. The night had turned very hot and close, but the glass roof of the Winter Garden stood open and they sat there almost as in the open air, the great palms and shrubs all about them and many lights glowing cunningly amid the giant leaves. As earlier in the evening, so now Gessner was in the best of spirits, laughing at every trivial circumstance and compelling his guest to see how kindly was his desposition toward him.

"We shall be comfortable here," he said, "and far enough away from the port wine to save me self-reproach to-morrow. I see that you drink little, Alban. It is wise—all those who have the gout will speak of your wisdom. We drink because the wine is there, not because we want it. And then in the morning, we say, how foolish. Come now, light another cigarette and listen to me. I have great things to talk about, great questions to ask you. You must listen patiently, for this concerns your happiness—as closely perhaps as anything will concern it as long as you live."

He did not continue immediately, seeing the footman at his elbow with the coffee. Alban, upon his part, lighted a cigarette as he had been commanded, and waited patiently. He thought that he knew what was coming and yet was afraid of the thought. Anna's sudden passion for him had been too patent to all the world that he should lightly escape its consequences. Indeed, he had never waited for any one to speak with the anxiety which attended this interval of service. He thought that the footman would never leave them alone.

"Now," said Gessner at last, "now that those fellows are gone we can make ourselves comfortable. I shall be very plain, my lad—I shall not deceive you again. When you first came to my house, I did not tell you the truth—I am going to tell it to you to-night, for it is only right that you should know it."

He stirred his coffee vigorously and puffed at his cigar until it glowed red again. When he resumed he spoke in brief decisive sentences as though forbidding question or contradiction until he had finished.

"There is a fellow-countryman of mine—you know him and know his daughter. He believes that I am under some obligation to him and I do not contradict him. When we met in London, many years after the business transaction of which he complains, I asked him in what way I could be of service to him or to his family, as the case might be. He answered that he wanted nothing for himself, but that any favor I might be disposed to show should be toward his daughter and to you. I took it that you were in love with the girl and would marry her. That was what I was given to believe. At the same time, this fellow Boriskoff assured me that you were well educated, of a singularly independent character, and well worthy of being received into this house. I will not deny that the fellow made very much of this request, and that it was put to me with certain alternatives which I considered impertinent. You, however, had no part in that. You came here because the whole truth was not told to you—and you remained because my daughter wished it. There I do not fear contradiction. You know yourself that it is true and will not contradict me. As the time went on, I perceived that you had established a claim to my generosity such as did not exist when first you came here—the claim of my affection and of my daughter's. This, I will confess, has given me more pleasure than anything which has happened here for a long time. I have no son and I take it as the beneficent work of Providence that one should be sent to me as you were sent. My daughter would possibly have married a scoundrel if the circumstances had been otherwise. So, you see, that while you are now established here by right of our affection, I am rewarded twofold for anything I may have done for you. Henceforth this happy state of things must become still happier. I have spoken to Anna to-night, and I should be very foolish if I could not construe her answer rightly. She loves you, my lad, and will take you for her husband. It remains for you to say that your happiness shall not be delayed any longer than may be reasonable."

It need scarcely be said with what surprise Alban listened to this lengthy recital. Some part of the truth had already been made known to him—but this fuller account could not but flatter his vanity while it left him silent in his amazement and perplexity. Richard Gessner, he understood, had always desired a brilliant match for Anna, and had sought an alliance with some of the foremost English families. If he abandoned these ambitions, a shrewd belief in the impossibility lay at the root of his determination. Anna would never marry as he wished. Her birthright and her Eastern blood forbade it. She would be the child of whim and of passion always, and it lay upon him to avert the greater evil by the lesser. Alban in a vague way understood this, but of his own case he could make little. What a world of ease and luxury and delight these few simple words opened up to him. He had but to say "yes" to become the ultimate master of this man's fortune, the possessor of a heritage which would have been considered fabulous but fifty years ago. And yet he would not say "yes." It was as though some unknown power restrained him, almost as though his own brain tricked him. Of Anna's sudden passion for him he had no doubt whatever. She was ready and willing to yield her whole self to him and would, it might be, make him a devoted wife. None the less, the temptation found him vacillating and incapable even of a clear decision. Some voice of the past called to him and would not be silenced. Maladroitly, he gave no direct reply, but answered the question by another.

"Did Paul Boriskoff tell you that I was about to marry his daughter, Mr. Gessner?"

"My dear lad, what Paul Boriskoff said or did can be of little interest to you or me to-night. He is no longer in England, let me tell you. He left for Poland three days ago."

"Then you saw him or heard from him before he left?"

"Not at all. The less one sees or hears from that kind of person the better. You know the fellow and will understand me. He is a firebrand we can well do without. I recommended him to go to Poland and he has gone. His daughter, I understand, is being educated at Warsaw. Let me advise you to forget such acquaintances—they are no longer of any concern to either of us."

He waved his hand as though to dismiss the subject finally; but his words left Alban strangely ill at ease.

"Old Paul is a fanatic," he said presently, "but a very kindly one. I think he is very selfish where his daughter is concerned, but he loves his country and is quite honest in his opinions. From what I have heard in Union Street, he is very unwise to go back to Poland. The Russian authorities must be perfectly well aware what he has done in London, and are not likely to forget it. Yes, indeed, I am sorry that he has been so foolish."

He spoke as one who regretted sincerely the indiscretions of a friend and would have saved him from them. Gessner, upon his side, desired as little talk of the Boriskoffs as might be. If he had told the truth, he knew that Alban Kennedy would walk out of his house never to return. For it had been his own accomplices who had persuaded old Paul to return to Poland—and the Russian police were waiting for him across the frontier. Any hour might bring the news of his arrest. The poor fanatic who babbled threats would be under lock and key before many hours had passed, on his way to Saghalin perhaps—and his daughter might starve if she were obstinate enough. All this was in Gessner's mind, but he said nothing of it. His quick perception set a finger upon Alban's difficulty and instantly grappled with it.

"We must do what we can for the old fellow," he said lightly, "I am already paying for the daughter's education and will see to her future. You would be wise, Alban, to cut all those connections finally. I want you to take a good place in the world. You have a fine talent, and when you come into my business, as I propose that you shall do, you will get a training you could not better in Europe. Believe me, a financier's position is more influential in its way than that of kings. Here am I living in this quiet way, rarely seen by anybody, following my own simple pleasures just as a country gentleman might do, and yet I have but to send a telegram over the wires to make thousands rich or to ruin them. You will inherit my influence as you will inherit my fortune. When you are Anna's husband, you must be my right hand, acting for me, speaking for me, learning to think for me. This I foresee and welcome—this is what I offer you to-night. Now go to Anna and speak to her for yourself. She is waiting for you in the drawing-room and you must not tease her. Go to her, my dear boy, and say that which I know she wishes to hear."

He did not doubt the issue—who would have done? Standing there with his hand upon Alban's shoulder, he believed that he had found a son and saved his daughter from the peril of her heritage.

So is Fate ironical. For as they talked, Fellows appeared in the garden and announced the Russian, who carried to Hampstead tidings of a failure disastrous beyond any in the eventful story of this man's life.



CHAPTER XIX

THE PLOT HAS FAILED

The Russian appeared to be a young man, some thirty years of age perhaps. His dress was after the French fashion. He wore a shirt with a soft embroidered front and a tousled black cravat which added a shade of pallor to his unusually pale face. When he spoke in the German tongue, his voice had a pleasant musical ring, even while it narrated the story of his friend's misfortune.

"We have failed, mein Heir," he said, "I come to you with grievous news. We have failed and there is not an hour to lose."

Gessner heard him with that self-mastery to which his whole life had trained him. Betraying no sign of emotion whatever, he pulled a chair toward the light and invited the stranger to take it.

"This is my young kinsman," he said, introducing Alban who still lingered in the garden; "you have heard of him, Count." And then to Alban, "Let me present you to my very old friend, Count Zamoyaki. He is a cavalry soldier, Alban, and there is no finer rider in Europe."