leisure and too advanced Forrest finished as abruptly as he had begun
and rose from the piano. But for a few charged moments even the twins
were silent.

"He used to sing that song," said Forrest, "so that the cold chills went
galloping the length of a man's spine. He was as like you to look at,"
he turned to the earl, "as one star is like another. I cannot tell you
how it has moved me to meet you. We were in a place called Grub Gulch,
placer-mining--half a dozen of us. I came down with the scarlet fever.
The others bolted, all but Charlie Stuart. He stayed. But by the time I
was up, thanks to him, he was down--thanks to me. He died of it."
Forrest finished very gravely.

"Good Lord!" said the earl.

"_He_ might ha' been a king," said Forrest. And he swallowed the lump
that rose in his throat, and turned away so that his face could not be
seen by them.

But, presently, he flashed about with his winning smile.

"What, would all you rich young people do if you hadn't a sou in the
world?"

"Good Lord!" said Stephen, "everything I know how to do decently costs
money."

"I feel sure," said Alice, her arm about Evelyn's waist, "that our
beauty and goodness would see _us_ through."