as it did an idea
which hitherto had escaped him, held him for an instant spellbound with
wonder. A clever man, accustomed to arrive at conclusions swiftly, the
complexity of his thoughts, the strife of arguments now unnerved him
utterly. For he perceived both a great possibility and a great danger.

He is "to marry Lois Boriskoff" was the silent reflection--"to marry the
daughter. And this--this--good God, the man would never forgive me
this!"

The paper tumbled from his hands. Alban, turning upon his pillow, sighed
in his sleep. A neighboring church clock struck six; there were workmen
going down to the city which must now awake to the labors of the day.

CHAPTER XI

WHIRLWIND

Captain Willy Forrest admitted that he had few virtues, but he never
charged himself with the vice of idleness. In town or out of it, his
trim man-servant, Abel, would wake him at seven o'clock and see that he
had a cup of tea and the morning papers by a quarter-past. Fine physical
condition was one of the ambitions of this lithe shapely person, whose
father had been a jockey and whose mother had not forgotten to the day
of her death the manner in which measurements are taken upon a counter.

Willy Forrest, by dint of perseverance, had really come to believe that
these worthy parents never existed but in his imagination. To the world
he was the second son of the late Sir John Forrest, Bart., whose
first-born, supposed to be in Africa, had remained beyond the pale for
many years. Society, which rarely questions pleasant people, took him at
his word and opened many doors to him. In short, he was a type of
adventurer by no means uncommon, and rarely unsuccessful when there are
brains to back the pretensions.

He was not a particularly evil rascal, and women found him charming.
Possessed of a merry face, a horsey manner and a vocabulary which would
have delighted a maker of slang dictionaries, he pushed his my
everywhere, not hoping for something to turn up, but determined that his
own cleverness should contrive that desirable arrival. When he met Anna
Gessner at Ascot a year ago, the propitious moment seemed at hand. "The
girl is a gambler to her very boots," he told himself, while he
reflected that a seat upon the box of such a family coach would
certainly make his fortune. Willy Forrest resolved to secure such a seat
without a moment's loss of time.

This determination taken, the ardor with which he pursued it was
surprising. A