The good woman left them, carrying a retroussé 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."
"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 money. If I don't pay you, you say that I must marry you. Will you deny that it is the truth? You won this money from me to compel me to marry you?"
Captain Willy Forrest slapped his thigh as though she had told him an excellent joke.
"That's the best thing I've heard for a twelvemonth," cried he; "as if you were the sort to be caught that way, Anna--by an impostor too, as your Little Boy Blue told you at Henley. He said I was an impostor, didn't he? Well, he's about right there--I'm not the son of old Sir James Forrest--never was, my dear. He was my father's employer, and a devilish good servant he had. But I've some claims on his memory all the same--and why shouldn't I call myself Forrest if I want to? Now, Anna, I'll be as plain with you as a parson at a pigeon match. I do want to marry you--I've wanted to marry you ever since I knew you--but if you think I'm such a fool as to go about it in the way you say I've done, well, then, I'll put right in for the Balmy Stakes and win 'em sure and certain. Don't you see that the boot's just on the other leg right along? I win your money because I want you to think I'm a decent sort of chap when I don't take it. As for the bookies who hissed the horse on the course--who's to pity them? Didn't they see the old gee in the paddock--eh, what! Hadn't they as good a chance as any of us to spot that dotty leg. If I'd a been born with a little white choker round my swan's-down, I'd have shouted the news from the mulberry tree. But I wasn't, my dear--I'm just one of the ruck on the lookout to make a bit--and who'll grease my wheels if I leave my can at home? No, don't you think it--I wanted to marry you right enough, but that wasn't the road. What your father's paid me, he's going to have back again and pretty soon about. Let him give it to the kid who's playing Peep-bo with the Polish Venus--I shan't take it, no, not if I come down to a porcelain bath in the Poplar Union--and what's more, you know I won't, Anna."