"All the same, she's remarkably pretty, and I'm not too old to admire a pretty woman," chuckled his companion. "'Pon my word, I 'm quite inclined to envy that boy. Just imagine a veritable woman, still thinking herself a child, with a delightful boy for her only companion, and no one to stand between them! I'd have given worlds for such a chance when I was his age."
"But, you see, you are not his age; so it is no use trying to cut him out. Besides, you ought to know better, Heaton, at your time of life," said Paul, in a jesting manner that was a little strained. Heaton took his remark rather as a compliment than otherwise.
"You won't alter me, my boy; you'll find me the same to the end of the chapter,—so make up your mind to that. I'm not ashamed of it either, not I! Seriously, though, I'm quite interested in our little love story yonder. I should like to help that boy. Silly ass! why doesn't he make a plunge for it? He isn't likely to have a rival."
"Perhaps that is why he doesn't," observed Paul. "But I don't see why we should trouble ourselves about it."
"That's where you're so cynical," complained Heaton. "These little affairs always interest me intensely; they bring back my youth to me, and remind me of my lost happiness. Oh, life! what you once held for me! And now it is all gone, buried with my two sweet wives, and I am left alone with no one to care what becomes of me."
His eyes were moist as he finished speaking, and Paul walked along at his side without offering any consolation. He would have found it difficult to explain why he had chosen Laurence Heaton for a friend. It would be more correct to say, perhaps, that Heaton had chosen him, and that he had lacked the energy or the power to shake him off. It was generally true that his sentimental egotism bored Paul excessively, and yet he found something to like in a nature that was so unlike his own; and he was so secretive himself that the artless confidences of Heaton, if a little wearisome, at least relieved him of the necessity of adding to the conversation. Besides this, he was a man who never willingly sought the friendship of others, and the obvious preference that the good-natured idler, who was so many years his elder, had shown for him when they first met at a public dinner, had secretly flattered him not a little, and their acquaintance had grown after that as a matter of course.
"All the same," resumed Heaton in his ordinary manner, "an outsider never can do much in these cases. Perhaps it would be better to leave them alone; and yet, if the boy were to come to me for the benefit of my larger experience—"
"Don't you think," interrupted Paul, "that we have talked about a couple of children as much as we need? It's all very well for an old reprobate like yourself to spend your time in reviving your lost youth, but I haven't so much leisure as you have, and I want to hear about those shares you mentioned in your letter last week."
Heaton laughed good-humouredly.
"You don't realise, my dear fellow, how anything like that always interests me. But you wait until your time comes; at present you are too cynical to understand what I mean."