Part 8 (2/2)
”It would do no good if he did,” said Alban as bluntly. ”I should only make a fool of myself. Your friend must have told you that you want a pretty good allowance to do upon--and fancy begging from your people when you were twenty-one. Why, in the East End many a lad of nineteen keeps a whole family and doesn't think himself ill-used. Isn't it rot that there should be so much inequality in life, Miss Gessner? I don't suppose, though, that one would think so if one had money.”
She smiled at his question, but diverted the subject cleverly.
”Are you very self-willed, Mr. Kennedy?”
”Do you mean that I get what I want--or try to?”
”I mean that you have your own way in everything. If you were in love you would carry the poor thing off by force.”
”If I were in love and guessed that she was, I should certainly be outside to time. That's East End, you know, for punctuality.”
”You would marry in haste and repent at leisure?”
”It would be yes or no, and that would be the end of it. Girls like a man who compels them--they like to obey, at least when they are young. I don't believe any girl ever loved a coward yet. Do you think so yourself?”
She astonished him by rising suddenly and breaking off the conversation as abruptly.
”G.o.d help me, I don't know what I think,” she said; and then, with half a laugh to cover it, ”Here is Mr. Geary come to take care of you. I will say good-night. We shall meet at breakfast and talk of all this again--if you get up in time.”
He made no answer and she disappeared with just a flash of her ample skirts into the boudoir and so to the hall beyond. The curate appeared a minute later, full of apologies and of the Dorcas meeting he had so lately illuminated with his intellectual presence. A mild cigarette and a gla.s.s of mineral water found him quite ready for bed.
”There will be so much to speak of to-morrow, my dear boy,” he said in that lofty tone which attended his patronage, ”there is so much for you to be thankful for to-day. Let us go and dream of it all. The reality must be greater than anything we can imagine.”
”I'll tell you in a week's time,” said Alban, dryly.
A change had come upon him already. For Anna Gessner had betrayed her secret, and he knew that she had a lover.
CHAPTER X
RICHARD GESSNER DEBATES AN ISSUE
Richard Gessner returned to ”Five Gables” as the clock of Hampstead Parish Church was striking one. A yawning footman met him in the hall and asked him if he wished for anything. To the man's astonishment, he was ordered to carry brandy and Vichy water to the bedroom immediately.
”To your room, sir?”
”To my room--are you deaf?”
”I beg your pardon, sir. Miss Gessner has returned.”
”My daughter--when?”
”After dinner, sir.”
”Was there any one with her?”
”I didn't rightly see, sir. Fellows opened the door--he could tell you, sir.”
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