Captain w.i.l.l.y Forrest admitted that he had few virtues, but he never charged himself with the vice of idleness. In town or out of it, his trim man-servant, Abel, would wake him at seven o'clock and see that he had a cup of tea and the morning papers by a quarter-past. Fine physical condition was one of the ambitions of this lithe shapely person, whose father had been a jockey and whose mother had not forgotten to the day of her death the manner in which measurements are taken upon a counter.

w.i.l.l.y Forrest, by dint of perseverance, had really come to believe that these worthy parents never existed but in his imagination. To the world he was the second son of the late Sir John Forrest, Bart., whose first-born, supposed to be in Africa, had remained beyond the pale for many years. Society, which rarely questions pleasant people, took him at his word and opened many doors to him. In short, he was a type of adventurer by no means uncommon, and rarely unsuccessful when there are brains to back the pretensions.

He was not a particularly evil rascal, and women found him charming.

Possessed of a merry face, a horsey manner and a vocabulary which would have delighted a maker of slang dictionaries, he pushed his my everywhere, not hoping for something to turn up, but determined that his own cleverness should contrive that desirable arrival. When he met Anna Gessner at Ascot a year ago, the propitious moment seemed at hand. "The girl is a gambler to her very boots," he told himself, while he reflected that a seat upon the box of such a family coach would certainly make his fortune. w.i.l.l.y Forrest resolved to secure such a seat without a moment's loss of time.

This determination taken, the ardor with which he pursued it was surprising. A cunning fox-like instinct led him to read Anna Gessner's character as few others who had known her. Believing greatly in the gospel of heredity, he perceived that Anna owed much to her father and more to her nationality. "She is selfish and pa.s.sionate, a little devil in single harness who would be worse in double"--this was his reading of her; to which he added the firm resolution to put the matter to the proof without loss of time.

"I shall weigh in immediately and the weights will be light," he thought. "She likes a bit of a flutter and I'll see that she gets it.

There is plenty of corn in the old man's manger, and if it comes to bursting the bag, I will carry home the pieces. There's where I drive the car. She shall play and I will be her pet lamb. Great Jupiter, what a catch!"

The result of this pretty conclusion is next to be seen in a cottage in Hampshire, not far removed from the racing stables of the great John Farrier, who, as all the world knows, is one of the most honest and the most famous trainers in the country. This cottage had w.i.l.l.y Forrest furnished (indirectly at Anna's expense) in a manner worthy of all the artistic catalogues. And hither would Anna come, driving over from her father's country-house near Basingstoke, and caring not a fig what the grooms might think of her.

"Captain Forrest is my trainer," she told the men, bidding them to be secret.

For any other explanation they cared not at all. To run a horse in a great race seemed to them the highest of human achievements, and great was their wonder that this fragile girl should dare it. "She be a rare good 'un and a stayer. Derned if I don't put my last b.u.t.ton on Whirlwind." This was the extent of the scandal that she caused.

Anna motored over to "The Nest" some three weeks after Alban had been received at Hampstead, and found w.i.l.l.y Forrest anxiously waiting for her at the gate. She had brought with her one of those obliging dependents who act so cheerfully as unnecessary chaperones, and this "person" she left in the smart car while she entered the cottage and told the owner that he was forgiven. Their quarrel had been vehement and tempestuous while it lasted--and the Captain remembered that she had struck him with her whip.

"I knew you'd come, Anna," he said good-humoredly while he opened the gate for her. "Of course, I don't bear you any grudge. Good Lord, how you went it last time. I might have been a hair-trunk that had let you down at a gate. Eh, what--do you remember it? And the old chin-pot which cost me twenty guineas. Why, you smashed it all to bits with your whip--eh, what? I've laughed till I cried every time I tried to stick it together again. Come right in and let's shake hands. You've got an oddish looking lot in the car--bought her in at the sale, I suppose--eh, what? Well, I'm glad to see you really."

She looked a little downcast, he thought, but prettier than he had ever seen her before. It was quite early in the morning and his table had been set out for breakfast, with dainty old-fashioned china and a silver kettle singing over a lamp. Anna took her favorite arm-chair, and drawing it close to the table permitted him to give her a cup of tea.

"You wanted to make a cheat of me," she said calmly enough. "Oh, yes, I have heard all about it. There's nothing whatever the matter with Whirlwind. He must win the cup--John Farrier says so. You are the person who does not wish him to win."

Adventurers never blush when they are found out, and w.i.l.l.y Forrest was no exception to the rule.

"Oh, there you are," he cried boisterously, "just the same old kettle-drum and the same old sticks. Do you think I don't know as much about a horse as Farrier? Good Lord, he makes me sick--I'd sooner hear a Salvation Army Band playing 'Jumping Jerusalem' on the trombone than old John Farrier talking honest. Are we running nags to pay the brokers out or to make a bit on our sweet little own--eh, what? Are we white-chokered philanthropists or wee wee baby mites on the n.o.bbly nuggets? Don't you listen to him, Anna. You'll have to sell your boots if you follow old John."

She stirred her tea and sipped it slowly.

"You said Whirlwind was going lame on the near fore-leg, and it isn't true," she exclaimed upon a pause. "What was your object in telling me that?"

"I said it before the grooms and you didn't give me a chance of blowing the smoke away afterwards. You say you are racing to make money and what's the good of hymns and milk? This horse will start at eleven to four on unless you're careful--where's my gold-lined shower bath then?

Don't you see that you must put the market back--frighten the backers off and then step in? That's what I was trying to teach you all the time. Give out on the loud trumpet that the horse has gone d.i.c.key and leave 'em uncertain for a week whether he's running or sticking. Your money's on through a third party in the 'tween times and your cheeks are as red as roses when the flag goes down."

"And if the horse should not win after you have cheated the people?"

"You'll be some five thousand out of pocket--that's all. Now, Anna, don't let us have any mumble-pie between us. I'm not the dark man of the story-books who lures the beautiful heroine on to play, and you're not the wonderful Princess who breaks her old pa and marries because he's stony. You can't get overmuch out of the old man and you're going to make the rest at Tattersalls. If you listen to me, you'll make it--but if you don't, if you play the giddy goat with old John Farrier in the pulpit; well, then, the sooner you write cheques the better. That's the plain truth and you may take it or leave it. There are not three honest men racing and w.i.l.l.y Forrest don't join the trinity. We'll do as all the crowd does and leave 'em to take care of themselves. You make a book that they know how to do it. Oh, my stars, don't they--eh, what?"

Anna did not reply immediately to this odd harangue. She knew a good deal about horses, but nothing whatever about the knavery of betting, the shoddy tricks of it and the despicable spirit in which this great game is often played. Something of her father's cunning, inherited and ineradicable, led her to condone the Captain's sporting creed and not to seek understanding. The man's high spirits made a sure appeal to her.

She could not comprehend it wholly--but she had to admit that none of all her father's widening circle had ever appealed to her as this nimble-tongued adventurer, who could make her heart quicken every time their hands touched.

"I don't like it," she said anon, "and I don't want anything to do with it. You make Whirlwind win the race and n.o.body will be hurt. If they bet against the horse, what is that to me? How can I help what they think--and I don't care either if they are so foolish. Didn't you promise me that I should see him gallop this morning? I wouldn't have motored over otherwise. You said that there was to be a Trial--"

"Divine angel, we are at your feet always. Of course, there's a Trial.

Am I so foolish as to suppose that you came over to see w.i.l.l.y Forrest--eh, what? Have I lost the funny-bone up above? Farrier is going to gallop the nags in half an hour's time. Your smoke-machine can take us up the hill and there we'll form our own conclusions. You leave the rest to me. It will be a bright sunny morning when they put any salt on w.i.l.l.y Forrest's tail--eh, what?"

She admitted the truth with the first smile he had seen since she entered the cottage. His quick bustling manner, the deference he always paid to her, despite his odd phrases, won upon her good humor and led her to open her heart to him.

"My father is going mad," she said quietly--his startled "eh, what" not preventing her; "we are making our house a home for the dest.i.tute, and the first arrived just three weeks ago. Imagine a flaxen-haired image of righteousness, who draws my portrait on the covers of books and puts feathers in my hat. He is in love with me, w.i.l.l.y, and he is to be my big brother. Yesterday I took him to Ra.n.a.legh and heard a discourse upon the beauties of nature and the wonders of the air and the sky. Oh, my dear man--what a purgatory and what an event. We are going to sell our jewels presently and to live in Whitechapel. My father, I must tell you, seems afraid of this beautiful apparition and implores him every day not to go away. I know that he stops because he is inclined to make love to me.

"Whew--so it's only 'inclined' at present?"

"Absolutely as you say. There appear to be two of us. I have been expecting a pa.s.sionate declaration--but the recollections of a feathered beauty who once lived in a fairy palace, in a wonderland where you dine upon red herrings--she is my hated rival. I am more beautiful, observe--that is conceded, but he cannot understand me. The feathered hat has become my salvation. My great big brother can't get over it--and oh, the simplicity of the child, the youthful verdant confidence, my w.i.l.l.y. Don't you see that the young man thinks I am an angel and is wondering all the time where the wings have gone to."

"Ha, ha--he'd better ask Paquin. Are you serious, Anna?"

"As serious as the Lord High Executioner himself. My father has adopted a youth--and I have a big brother. He has consented to dwell in our house and to spend our savings because he believes that by so doing he is in some way helping me. I don't in the least want his help, but my father is determined that I shall have it. I am not to bestow my young affections upon him--nor, upon the other hand, am I to offend him. Admit that the situation is delightful. Pity a poor maiden in her distress."

w.i.l.l.y Forrest did not like the sound of it at all.

"The old chap must have gone dotty," he remarked presently; "they're often taken this way when they get to a certain age. You'll have to sit tight and see about it, Anna. He isn't too free with the ready as it is--and if you've a boy hanging about, G.o.d help you. Why don't you be rude to him? You know the way as well as most--eh, what?"

"I'm positively afraid to. Do you know, my dear man, that if this Perfect Angel left us, strange things would happen. My father says so, and I believe he speaks the truth. There is a mystery--and I hate mysteries."

"Get hold of the feathered lady and hear what she has to say."

"Impossible but brilliant. She has gone to Germany."

"Oh, d.a.m.n--then he'll be making love to you. I say, Anna, there's not going to be any billing and cooing or anything of that sort. I'm not very exacting, but the way you look at men is just prussic acid to me.

If this kid should begin--"

She laughed drolly.

"He is my great big brother," she said--and then jumping up--"let us go and see the horses. You'll be talking nonsense if we don't. And, w.i.l.l.y, I forbid you to talk nonsense."

She turned and faced him in mock anger, and he, responding instantly, caught her in his arms and kissed her ardently.

"What a pair of cherubs," he exclaimed, "what a nest of cooing doves--I say, Anna, I must kill that kid--or shall it be the fatted calf?

There'll be murder done somewhere if he stops at Hampstead."

"If it were done, then when it were done--O let me go, w.i.l.l.y, your arms are crushing me."

He released her instantly and, s.n.a.t.c.hing up a cap, set out with her to the downs where the horses were being stripped for the gallop. The morning of early summer was delightfully fragrant--a cool breeze came up from the sea and every breath invigorated. Old John Farrier, mounted on a st.u.r.dy cob, met them at the foot of a great gra.s.sy slope and complained that it was over late in the day for horses to gallop, but, as he added, "they'll have to do it at Ascot and they may as well do it here." A silent man, old John had once accompanied w.i.l.l.y Forrest to a dinner at the Carlton which Anna gave to a little sporting circle. Then he uttered but one remark, seeming to think some observation necessary, and it fell from his lips in the pause of a social discussion. "I always eat sparrer-gra.s.s with my fingers," he had said, and wondered at the general hilarity.

Old John was unusually silent upon this morning of the trial, and when he named the weights at which the horses would gallop, his voice sank to a sepulchral whisper. "The old 'oss is giving six pounds," he said, "he should be beat a length. If it's more, go cautious, miss, and save your money for another day. He hasn't been looking all I should like of him for a long time--that's plain truth; and when a horse isn't looking all I should like of him, 'go easy' say I and keep your money under the bed."

Anna laughed at the kindly advice, and leaving the car she walked to the summit of the hill and there watched the horses--but three pretty specks they appeared--far down in the hollow. The exhilaration of the great open s.p.a.ces, the wide unbroken grandeur of the downs, the sweetness of the air, the freshness of the day, brought blood to her pallid cheeks and a sparkle of life to her eyes. How free it all was, how unrestrained, how suggestive of liberty and of a boundless kingdom! And then upon it all the excitements of the gallop, the thunder of hoofs upon the soft turf, the bent figures of the jockeys, the raking strides of the beautiful horses--Anna no longer wondered why sport could so fascinate its devotees. She felt at such a moment that she would have gladly put her whole fortune upon Whirlwind.

"He wins--he wins--he wins," she cried as the three drew near, and w.i.l.l.y Forrest, watching her with cunning eyes, said that the trap was closed indeed and the key in his possession. Whirlwind, a magnificent chestnut four-year-old, came striding up the hill as though the last furlong of the mile and a half he had galloped were his chief delight. He was a winner by a short head as they pa.s.sed the post, and old John Farrier could not hide his satisfaction.

"He's the best plucked 'un in England to-day, lady, and you may put your wardrobe on him after that. Be quick about it though, for there'll be no odds to speak of when the touts have written to-day's work in the newspapers. Go and telegraph your commissions now. There isn't a minute to lose."

w.i.l.l.y Forrest seconded the proposal eagerly.

"I should back him for five thou," he said as they left the course together, "what's the good of half measures? You might as well play dominoes in a coffee shop. And I can always break the news to your father if you lose."