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“Ranger Ballin,” said Forrest, “had another son who was spirited away in childhood by the gypsies. That will explain this visit, which on the face of it is an impertinence. It will explain why I have entered this house without knocking, and have invited myself to luncheon. You see, sir, all this”–and again he made the sudden, sweeping gesture–“is mine.”

It speaks for Forrest’s effect that, although reason told Ballin to doubt this cataclysmic statement, instinct convinced him that it was true. Yet what its truth might mean to him did not so convincingly appear. That he might be ousted from all that he looked on as his own did not yet occur to him, even vaguely.

“Then we are cousins,” he said simply, and held out his hand. But Forrest did not take it at once.

“Do you understand what cousinship with me means to you?” he said.

“Why,” said Ballin, “if you are my cousin”–he tried to imply the doubt that he by no means felt–“there is surely enough for us both.”

“Enough to make up for the years when there has been nothing?” Forrest smiled.

“It is a matter for lawyers to discuss, then,” said Ballin quietly. “Personally, I do not doubt that you believe yourself to be my cousin’s son. But there is room, surely, in others for many doubts.”

“Not in others,” said Forrest, “who have been taught to know that two and two are four.”

“Have you documentary proof of this astonishing statement?” said Ballin.

“Surely,” said Forrest. And he drew from an inner pocket a bundle of documents bound with a tape. Ballin ran a perturbed but deft eye through them, while Forrest stood motionless, more like a shadow than a man. Then, presently, Ballin looked up with a stanch, honorable look.

“I pick no flaws here cousin,” he said. “I–I congratulate you.”

“Cousin,” said Forrest, “it has been my business in life to see others take their medicine. But I have never seen so great a pill swallowed so calmly. Will you offer me your hand now?”

Ballin offered his hand grimly.

Then he tied the documents back into their tape and offered the bundle to Forrest.

“I am a careless man,” said Forrest; “I might lose them. May I ask you to look after them for me?”

“Would you leave me alone with them?” asked Ballin.

“Of course,” said Forrest.

Ballin opened an old-fashioned safe in the paneling and locked it upon the despoiling documents. Yet his heart, in spite of its dread and bitterness, was warmed by the trustfulness of the despoiler.

“And now what?” he said.

“And now,” said Forrest, “remember for a little while only that I am, let us say, an old friend of your youth. Forget for the present, if you can, who else I am, and what my recrudescence must mean to you. It is not a happiness”–he faltered with his winning smile–“to give pain.”

II

“Your father,” said Forrest, “says that I may have his seat at the head of the table. You see, Miss Dorothy, in the world in which I have lived there were no families. And I have the strongest desire to experiment in some of those things which I have missed…. Ballin,” he exclaimed, “how lovely your daughters are!”

The young Earl of Moray glanced up mischievously.

“Do you think, sir,” he drawled, “that I have made the best selection under the circumstances? Sometimes I think I ought to have made up to Ellen instead of Dorothy.”

“What’s the matter with us?” said Alice, and she laid her hand upon Evelyn’s.

“Oh, you little rotters!” exclaimed the earl, whom they sometimes teased to the point of agony. “No man in his senses would look at you.”

“Right-O!” said young Stephen Ballin, who made the eighth at table. “They’re like germs,” he explained to Forrest–“very troublesome to deal with.”

“It’s because we’re twins,” said Evelyn. “Everybody who isn’t twins is down on them.”

“It’s because they are always beautiful and good,” said Alice. “Why don’t you stand up for us, father?”