"Make us a cup of tea, Mrs. Smiggs, will you?" he asked her
boisterously. "Here's my cousin come to tell me how to plant the
furniture. We shan't trouble you long--just make love to the kettle and
say we're in a hurry, will you now, there's a good soul."

Mrs. Smiggs took a sidelong glance at the lady, and tossing a proud but
tousled head assented to the proposition in far from becoming terms.

"I'm sure, sir, that I'm always willing to oblige," she said
condescendingly, "if as the young lady wouldn't like me to step out and
get no cakes nor nothing--"

"No, no, no cakes, thank you, Mrs. Smiggs--just a cup of tea as you can
make it and that's all. My cousin's carriage is waiting--she won't be
here ten minutes--eh, what?"

The good woman left them, carrying a retrousse nose at an angle of
suspicion. Willy Forrest drew an arm-chair towards the window of that
which would presently be his dining-room, and having persuaded Anna to
take it, he poised himself elegantly upon the arm of a sofa near by and
at once invited her confidence.

"Say, Anna, now, what's the good of nonsense? Why did you let the old
man send me that cheque?"

She began to pull off her gloves, slowly and with contemplative
deliberation.

"I let him send it because I did not wish to marry you."

"That's just what I thought. You got in a huff about a lot of fool's
talk on the course and turned it round upon me. Just like a woman--eh,
what? As if I could prevent your horse going dotty. That was Farrier's
business, not mine."

"But you let me back the horse."

"Of course I did. He might have won. I was just backing my luck against
yours. Of course I didn't mean you to lose anything. We were just two
good pals together, and what I took out of the ring would have been
yours if you'd asked me. Good Lord, what a mess your father's made of
it! Me with his five thou in my pocket and you calling me a blackguard.
You did call me a blackguard--now didn't you, Anna?"

It was very droll to see him sitting there and for a wonder telling her
something very like the truth. This, however, had been the keystone of a
moderately successful life. He had always told people that he was a
scamp--a kind of admission the world is very fond of. In Anna's case he
found the practice quite useful. It rarely failed to win her over.

"What was I to think?" she exclaimed almost as though her perplexity
distressed her. "The people say that I have cheated them and you win my