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.
"God 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 glass of mineral water found him quite ready for bed.