"Mr. Ballin?" said Forrest.
"I am Mr. Ballin." His eyes perused the stranger with astonishing speed and deftness, without seeming to do so.
"It was the toss of a coin that decided me to come," said Forrest. "I have asked your butler to lay a place for me at luncheon."
So much assumption on the part of a stranger has a cheeky look in the printing. Yet Forrest's tone and manner far more resembled those of old friendship and intimacy than impertinence.
"Have I," said Ballin, smiling a little doubtfully, "ever had the pleasure of meeting you before? I have a poor memory for faces. But it seems to me that I should not have forgotten yours."
"You never saw me but the one time," said Forrest. "That was many years ago, and you would not remember. You were a—little wild that night. You sat against me at a game of faro. But even if you had been yourself—I have changed very much. I was at that time, as you were, little more than a boy."
"Good Lord!" said Ballin, "were you a part of that hectic flush that to myself I only refer to as 'Sacramento'?"
"You do not look as if it had turned you into a drinking man," said
Forrest.
"It didn't," said Ballin, and without seeing any reason for confiding in the stranger he proceeded to do so. "It was nip and tuck for a time," he said, "and then money came to me, and this old place and responsibilities, and I became, more from force of circumstances than from any inner impulse, a decentish citizen."
"The money made everything smooth, did it?" said Forrest. "I wonder."