“You don’t keep them very long, eh?”
“No, and the devil can take them for all me. I’ve never had anything worth keeping since I got back from France. I care for nobody and nobody cares for me. That’s about the size of it, and most of the other fellows are the same way. My friends are all Bolshevists.”
“Oh, come now,” said the older man, regarding the frank young ne’er-do-well with some disgust, “that isn’t worthy of your father’s son.”
“Perhaps not; but what do you care?” turning upon his well-dressed, well-groomed companion; nettled by the shade of contempt in his tone. “My father’s dead and that’s the end of him.”
“I was going to tell you why I care,” said Ogden, meeting the inimical look in the exceedingly handsome blue eyes bent upon him. He paused a minute, then added, “I am glad I stopped over and hunted you up. You remind me of her.”
“Oh, yes,” said Hugh listlessly, “Carol. You said something about Carol.”
“I did,” returned the other quietly. “Twelve years ago to-day I asked her to be my wife.”
“You—Carol?” The boy’s voice was so incredulous that Ogden smiled.
“Yes; I wasn’t always forty-two, you know. I was thirty then, and she was eighteen.”
“That was the reason you hung around father, then?”