"You wonder—what?" said Ballin.
"If it could—money alone. I have had it at times—not as you have had it—but in large, ready sums. Yet I think it made very little difference."
"What have you been doing since—Sacramento?" asked Ballin.
"Up to a month ago," said Forrest, "I kept on dealing—in different parts of the world—in San Francisco, in London—Cairo—Calcutta. And then the matter which brings me here was brought to my attention."
"Yes?" said Ballin, a little more coolly.
"When you were in Sacramento," Forrest went on quietly and evenly as if stating an acknowledged fact, "you did not expect to come into all this. Then your cousin, Ranger Ballin, and his son went down in the City of Pittsburgh; and all this"—he made a sudden, sweeping gesture with one of his long, well-kept hands—"came to you."
"Yes?" Ballin's voice still interrogated coolly.
Forrest broke into that naïve, 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.