"Did you see—? Did Buddy have a talk with you? To-day, I mean?"
"Buddy? Oh, Buddy Briskow! I saw him for a moment only. She'll be back soon, I dare say?"
Tom Parker stirred; it was a moment before he spoke, then it was with apparent irrelevance that he said: "I'm sorry you and he didn't have a good talk. 'Bob' asked him to see you—sent him there a-purpose." The sight of Gray's smiling, eager, uncomprehending face caused the old man's steady gaze to waver. He cleared his throat. "Buddy's a fine boy."
"Finest in the world! I claim responsibility for him, in a way. He's part mine." Gray laughed; his eyes sparkled.
"Him and 'Bob' are out there together. They've been together a lot, Mr.
Gray. Both of 'em young, that-away—"
"Of course. I knew you'd both like—" Some quality in Tom's voice, some reluctant evasiveness to his eyes, bore a belated message to the younger man—snapped his chain of thought—dried the words upon his lips. Into his eyes leaped a sudden, strained incredulity. Sharply, he cried, "What do you mean?" Then, after an instant, "Why did he want to see me?" The two men gazed squarely at each other for the first time. "My God! Why—that's absurd! I—I brought him here. He's just a boy!"
"And she's just a girl, Mr. Gray."
The younger man shrank as if at a blow. He closed his eyes; he raised a shaking hand to his face, which was slowly assuming the color of ashes. "That's too—rottenly unfair!" he said, faintly. "I brought him here—made a man of him. Of course he doesn't know—" His eyes opened; eagerly he ran on: "Why, Tom, it's just the boy and girl of it! Puppy love! You know how that is."
"I didn't notice how things was going till if was too late. We might as well talk frankly, Mr. Gray. Prob'ly it's well you saw me first, eh? Well, when I understood where they was heading, I worried a lot—after what you said that day, understand? But those two! Pshaw! It was like they had known each other always. It was like 'Bob's' mother and me when we first met; her beautiful and fine and educated, and me rough and awkward. Only Buddy's a better boy than I was. He's got more in him. I s'pose all womenfolks have that mother feeling that makes 'em yearn over the unlikeliest fellers." Parker looked appealingly at his stricken hearer, then quickly dropped his eyes, for Gray's countenance was like that of a dying man—or of a man suffering the stroke of a surgeon's knife.
"After all, it's youth. You're a good deal older than 'Bob,' and I s'pose you sort of dazzled her. She likes you. She thinks you're great. You kinda thrill her, but—I don't believe she ever dreamed you was actually—that you actually cared for her. You've got a grand way, you know, and she ain't a bit conceited about herself. Why, I know she never figgered it that way, because she made Buddy promise to tell you the first thing; sent him to the bank a-purpose, thinking you'd be so glad on his account."