r. 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.