oda. 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 Whit