Hugo was not in the Carmody Arms. He was standing on the bridge over the Skirme, his elbows resting on the parapet, his eyes fixed on the flowing water. For a suitor recently accepted by—presumably—the girl of his heart, he looked oddly downcast. His eye, when he turned at the sound of his name, was the eye of a fish that has had trouble.
"Hullo, John, old man," he said in a toneless voice.
John began to feel his way into the subject he had come to discuss.
"Nice day," he said.
"What is?" said Hugo.
"This."
"I'm glad you think so. John," said Hugo, attaching himself sombrely to his cousin's coat sleeve, "I want your advice. In many ways you're a stodgy sort of a Gawd-help-us, but you're a level-headed kind of old bird, at that, and I want your advice. The fact is, John, believe me or believe me not, I've made an ass of myself."
"How's that?"
"I've gone and got engaged to Pat."
Having exploded this bombshell, Hugo leaned against the parapet and gazed at his cousin with a certain moody satisfaction.