Aladdin of London Part 8

"He is here now, Fellows! Who brought him then?"

"Mr. Geary--at six o'clock."

"Mr. Geary is a hateful busybody--I suppose I must speak to the boy."

"I think that Mr. Gessner would wish it, miss."

She hesitated a brief instant, her annoyance giving battle to her father's well-known desire. Curiosity in the end helped her decision.

She must see the object of a charity so eccentric.

"You say that he is in the garden?" she continued, taking two steps across the vestibule.

But this time Alban answered her himself.

"The beggar-boy is here," he said.

He had risen from his chair and the two confronted each other in the aureole of light cast out from the open window. Just twenty-four hours ago, Alban had been sitting by little Lois Boriskoff's side in the second gallery at the Aldgate Empire. To-night he wore a suit of good dress clothes, had dined at a millionaire's table and already recovered much of that polish and confident manner which an English public school rarely fails to bestow. Anna Gessner, in her turn, regarded him as though he were the agent of a trick which had been played upon her. To her amazement a hot flush of anger succeeded. She knew not how to meet him or what excuses to make.

"My father has not told me the truth," she exclaimed presently. "I am sorry that you overheard me--but I said what I meant. If he had told me that you were coming--"

Alban stood before her quite unabashed. He understood the circ.u.mstances and delighted in them.

"I am glad that you meant it," he rejoined, "of course, it is in some way true. Those who have no money are always beggars to those who have.

Let me say that I don't know at all why I am here, and that I shall go unless I find out. We need not quarrel about it at all."

Anna, however, had recovered her composure. Mistress of herself to a remarkable degree when her pa.s.sions were not aroused, she suddenly held out her hand to Alban as though she would apologize--but not by the spoken word.

"They have played a trick upon me," she cried. "I shall have it out with Mr. Geary when he comes. Of course I am very sorry. My father said that you were a distant relative, but he tried to frighten me by telling me that you lived in Whitechapel and were working in a factory. I was silly enough to believe it--you would have done so yourself."

"Most certainly--for it is quite true. I have been living in Whitechapel since my mother died, and I worked in a factory until yesterday. If you had come here a few hours back, you would have run away from the beggar-boy or offered him sixpence. I wonder which it would have been."

She would not admit the truth of it, and a little peevishly contested her point.

"I shall never believe it. This is just the kind of thing Mr. Geary would do. He is the most foolish man I have ever known. To leave you all alone here when he brought you as a stranger to our house. I wonder what my father would say to that."

She had drawn her cloak about her white throat again and seated herself near Alban's chair. Imitating her, he sat again and began to talk to her as naturally as though he had known her all her life. Not a trace of vexation at the manner of her reception remained to qualify that rare content he found in her company. Alban had long acquired the sense which judges every word and act by the particular circ.u.mstances under which it is spoken. He found it natural that Anna Gessner should resent his presence in the house. He liked her for telling him that it was so.

"My father says that he is going to make an engineer of you--is that just what you wish, Mr. Kennedy?"

"That's what I don't know," he replied as frankly. "You see, I have always wanted to get on, but how to do so is what beats me. Engineering is a big profession and I'm not sure that I have the gifts. There you have a candid confession. I'm one of those fellows who can do everything up to a certain point, but a certain point isn't good enough nowadays.

And a man wants money to get on. I'm sure it's easy enough to make a fortune if you have a decent share of brains and a bigger one capital. I want to make money and yet the East End has taught me to hate money. If Mr. Gessner can convince me that I have any claim upon his patronage, I shall go right into something and see if I cannot come out on top. You, I suppose, don't think much of the dirty professions. You'd like your brother to be a soldier, wouldn't you--or if not that, in the navy. Half the fellows at Westminster wanted to go into the army, just as though killing other people were the chief business in life. Of course, I wouldn't run it down--but what I mean to say is, that I never cared at all about it myself and so I'm not quite the best judge."

His little confession ended somewhat abruptly, for he observed that his words appeared to distress Anna Gessner beyond all reason. For many minutes she remained quite silent. When she spoke her eyes were turned away and her confusion not altogether to be concealed.

"I'm afraid you take your ideas of us from the cheap story-books," she said in a low voice; "women, nowadays, have their own ambitions and think less of men's. My dearest friend is a soldier, but I'm sure he would be a very foolish one if war broke out. They say he worked terribly hard in South Africa, but I don't think he ever killed any one.

So you see--I shouldn't ask you to go into the army, and I'm sure my father would not wish it either."

"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."