"There has been no woman financial genius since the world began," he would observe, and if those who contradicted him named the arts, he waved them aside. "What is art when finance is before us?" That Anna should amuse herself was well and proper. He wished her to marry well that he might have spoken of "my daughter, Lady Anna"--not with pride as most men would speak, but ironically as one far above such petty titles and able from his high place to deride them. Of her daily life, it must be confessed that he knew very little. A succession of worthy if incompetent dependants acted the chaperones part for him and satisfied his conscience upon that score. He heard of her at this social function or at that, and was glad that she should go. Men would say, "There's a catch for you--old Gessner's daughter; he must be worth a million if he's worth a penny." Her culpable predisposition toward that pleasant and smooth-tongued rascal, Willy Forrest, annoyed him for the time being but was soon forgotten. He believed that the man would not dare to carry pursuit farther, and if he did, the remedy must be drastic. "I will buy up his debts and send him through the Court," Gessner said. "If that does not do, we must find out his past and see where we can have him. My daughter may not marry as I wish, but if she marries a jockey, I have done with her." And this at hazard, though he had not the remotest idea who Forrest really was and had not taken the trouble to find out. When the man ceased to visit "Five Gables" he forgot him immediately. He was the very last person in all London whom he suspected when Anna, upon the day following his return from Paris, asked that they might have a little talk together and named the half-hour immediately before dinner for that purpose. He received her in his study, whither Fellows had already carried him a glass of sherry and bitters, and being in the best of good humor, he frankly confessed his pleasure that she should so appeal to him. "Come in, Anna, come in, my dear. What's the matter now--been getting into mischief? Oh, you girls--always the same story, a man or a milliner, and the poor old father to get you out of it. What is it this time--Paquin or Worth? Don't mind me, Anna. I can always live in a cottage on a pound a week. The doctor says I should be the better for it. Perhaps I should. Half the complaints we suffer from are just 'too much.' Think that over and add it up. You look very pale, my girl. You're not ill, are you?"