“Did you?” he asked, eagerly. “I was afraid I had grown so stout you would not remember me at all. Queer how a man will grow stout. I am not such a big eater, either, and I have worked hard, and—well, I might have been worse off, but I must say I have seen men who seemed to me happier, though I have made the best of things. I always did despise a flunk. But you! I heard you had adopted a baby,” he said, with a sudden glance at the blue and white bundle in the carriage, “and I thought you were mighty sensible. When people grow old they want young people growing around them, staffs for old age, you know, and all that sort of thing. Don’t know but I should have adopted a boy myself if it hadn’t been for—”
The man stopped, and his face was pink. Eudora turned her face slightly away.
“By the way,” said the man, in a suddenly hushed voice, “I suppose the kid you’ve got there is asleep. Wouldn’t do to wake him?”
“I think I had better not,” replied Eudora, in a hesitating voice. She began to walk along, and Harry Lawton fell into step beside her.
“I suppose it isn’t best to wake up babies; makes them cross, and they cry,” he said. “Say, Eudora, is he much trouble?”
“Very little,” replied Eudora, still in that strange voice.
“Doesn’t keep you awake nights?”
“Oh no.”
“Because if he does, I really think you should have a nurse. I don’t think you ought to lose sleep taking care of him.”
“I do not.”