"How splendid!" said the girl with her eyes sparkling, "have you ever been to war, Lord Tupping?"
"Not exactly to war," said Tuppy carefully, "in the wars, yes; but not to war."
Earlier in the afternoon he had gently broken to her the story of his mésalliance.
"I was a boy at the time an' she was a prima donna." He could not bring himself to own up to a strong woman. "We parted practically at the church door," he went on with melancholy relish, "information came to me that she was already married. I dropped her—or rather I gave her the opportunity of droppin' me."
"How chivalrous! it must have been a painful experience."
"It was," said Tuppy emphatically, "more painful for me than for her."
They threaded a way through the crowd in the Great Sok.
"Now, Miss Boardman," said Tuppy, "you know all that is to be known about me. I've told you," he said moodily, "more than I've ever told any feller."
Tuppy believed, when he said this, he was speaking the truth. It was the surest sign of his confidence and friendship, that he added to the history of his life—a history filed in most newspaper offices, and which appeared at regular intervals in the New York journals, indeed, every time that the strong lady changed her husband—the assurance that he had told his hearer "more than he had ever told anybody else." In this Tuppy was not singular.
But to the girl at his side, it was all very new, and all very, very tragic, and there were tears in her eyes as her cavalier led the way down the hill to the town.