“There was some quarrel, I remember,” said Ogden; “some trouble between her and your father.”
“Well, slightly,” returned Hugh. “She didn’t have any children, so my father, being her nephew, she set out to run him. Dad had a pretty stiff upper lip, and she claimed he ruined her life by disobeying her in his marriage, and in his business, and in the place he chose to live, and so on ad infinitum.”
“So she let him die without forgiving him.”
“Let him die! She’d have made him die if she could.”
“And she ignores the existence of you and Carol.”
“Well, rather.”
“It is all very vague in my remembrance because I didn’t notice anything much but Carol in those days. So”—the speaker paused again—“you are very much alone in the world, Hugh.”
“Yes,” said the boy carelessly. “What’s the difference? I don’t want any relatives bothering.”
When the meat course was finished, he took out a package of cigarettes. “Have a tack on me?” he said, and his host accepted one, but offered his guest a cigar which the boy refused with a curt shake of the head.