It was six o'clock as the carriage passed Swiss Cottage station and ten minutes later when they had climbed the stiff hill to the Heath. Alban had not often ridden in a carriage, but he would have found his sensations very difficult to set down. The glossy cushions, the fine ivory and silver fittings, were ornaments to be touched with caressing fingers as one touches the coat of a beautiful animal or the ripe bloom upon fruit. Just to loll back in such a vehicle, to watch the houses and the people and the streets, was an experience he had not hitherto imagined. The smooth motion was a delight to him. He felt that he could continue such a journey to the ends of the earth, resting at his ease, untroubled by those never ended questions upon which poverty insisted.
"Is it far yet, sir--is Mr. Gessner's house a long way off?"
He asked the question as one who desired an affirmative reply. The parson, however, believed that his charge was already wearied; and he said eagerly: "It is just over there between the trees, my lad. We shall be with our good friend in five minutes now. Perhaps you know that you are on Hampstead Heath?"
"I came here once with little Lois Boriskoff--on a Bank Holiday. It was not like this then. If Mr. Gessner is rich, why does he live in a place where people come to keep Bank Holiday? I should have thought he would have got away from them."
"He is not able to get away. His business takes him into town every day--he goes by motor-car and comes back at night to breathe pure air. Bank Holidays do not occur every day, Mr. Kennedy. Fortunately for some of us they are but four a year."
"Of course you don't like going amongst all those poor people, Mr. Geary. That's natural. I didn't until I had to, and then I found them much the same as the rest. You haven't any poor in Hampstead, I am told."
Mr. Geary fell into the trap all unsuspectingly.
"Thank heaven"--he began, and then checking himself clumsily, he added, "that is to say we are comparatively well off as neighborhoods go. Our people are not idlers, however. Some of the foremost manufacturers in the country live in Hampstead."
"While their work-people starve in Whitechapel. It's an odd world, isn't it, Mr. Geary--and I don't suppose we shall ever know much about it. If I had made a fortune by other people's work, I think I should like some of them to live in Hampstead too. But you see, I'm prejudiced."