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 w.i.l.l.y 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.

"h.e.l.lo, 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 gra.s.s--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.

"w.i.l.l.y," 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 gla.s.s 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 w.i.l.l.y. 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 att.i.tude 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 gla.s.s 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 gra.s.s 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.