Aladdin of London, or The Lodestar

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."

His keen eyes searched her face earnestly, much more earnestly than their wont, as he asked her this pointed question. Anna, upon her part, knew that he had juggled cleverly with the admitted facts of the case and yet her interest in his confession waxed stronger every moment. What an odd fascination this man exercised upon her. She felt drawn toward him as to some destiny she could not possibly escape. And when he spoke of Alban, then he had her finally enmeshed.