Forrest broke into that naive, boyish smile of his.

"My dear sir," said he, "I saw a play last winter in which the question
is asked, 'Do you believe in Fairies?' I ask you, 'Do you believe in
Gypsies?'"

"In what way?" Ballin asked, and he, too, smiled.

"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."