se the money and the old boy will pay
up--if I compel her to ask him. That depends on the kid. She couldn't
help making eyes at him if her life depended on it. Well--she's going to
marry me, and that's the long and short of it. Fancy passing a certainty
at my time of life. Do I see it--eh, what?"

And so they went their ways: Anna back to London to the solemn routine
of the big house; Willy Forrest to Epsom to try, as he said, "and pick
up the nimble with a pencil."

CHAPTER XII

ALBAN SEES LIFE

Alban had been five weeks at Hampstead when he met Willy Forrest for the
first time, and was able to gratify his curiosity concerning one whom he
believed to be Anna's lover.

The occasion was Richard Gessner's absence in Paris upon a business of
great urgency and the immediate appearance of the dashing captain at
"Five Gables." True, Anna behaved with great discretion, but, none the
less, Alban understood that this man was more to her than others, and he
did not fail to judge him with that shrewd scrutiny even youth may
command.

Willy Forrest, to give him his due, took an instinctive liking to the
new intruder and was not to be put off, however much his attentions were
displeasing to Anna. A cunning foresight, added to a fecund imagination
and a fine taste for all _chroniques scandaleuses_, led him to determine
that Alban Kennedy might yet inherit the bulk of Gessner's fortune and
become the plumpest of all possible pigeons. Should this be the case,
those who had been the young man's friends in the beginning might well
remain so to the end. He resolved instantly to cultivate an acquaintance
so desirable, and lost not a moment in the pursuit of his aims.

"My dear chap," he said on the third day of their association, "you are
positively growing grass in this place. Do you never go anywhere? Has no
one taught you how to amuse yourself?"

Alban replied that everything was so new to him that he desired no other
amusement than its enjoyment.

"It was almost years since I saw a tree that was not black," he said;
"the water used to drip through the roof of my garret, and there was a
family in the room on the opposite side of the landing. I don't think
you can understand what this house means to me. Perhaps I don't
understand myself. I'm almost afraid to go to sleep at night for fear I
should wake up in Union Street and find it all a fairy story. Mr.
Gessner says I am to stop with them always--but he might change h