Alec shook his head. “So far I have had no cause whatever for doing so.”
At this juncture they were all but run down by a man who was coming full tilt out of the refreshment buffet. “Ah, Mr. Alexander, glad to see you,” he exclaimed. “Have only time to say that the pair of chestnuts you and your partner sold me a fortnight ago have turned out perfect rippers—yes, sir, rippers. My wife—ah-ha!—hasn’t once been out of temper with me since I bought ’em. By-bye.” And with that he was gone.
Denis Boyd looked at Alec, and the latter read a certain question in his eyes.
“When I came out to the States I chose to drop my surname. I am known to everybody here simply as John Alexander,” he said quietly. “And look here, Boyd,” he added, “I shall be glad if, when you get back home, you will make no mention of having met me. I have certain reasons for asking this of you.”
“My dear fellow, not a word more is needed,” replied the other heartily. “You may rely upon my silence.”
A minute or two before, Boyd had been on the point of asking Alec whether he was still a bachelor, but it now seemed to him that such a question might savour, if not exactly of impertinence, yet of a desire to pry into a matter which was really no concern of his. It was evident there were incidents in his friend’s career which he did not wish to have touched on. He would leave his question unasked.
A few minutes later Boyd’s train steamed into the station.
After having parted from his friend, Alec was tempted by the fineness of the evening to go for a solitary ramble into the outskirts of the town, which, in one direction, could almost claim to be termed picturesque. His encounter with Boyd had served to awaken in him thoughts and memories which had long been dormant, but which now for a little while claimed him as their own with a persistency that would not be denied. It was not so much the scenes of his college life that his meeting with Boyd had recalled to visionary existence, but still earlier scenes connected with his life at the Chase. Once more he was a boy by his mother’s side, and felt her caressing hand smooth down his ruffled curls; once more he was pacing the dusky coverts with Martin Rigg, flushing now a covey of young partridges, and now some crusty old pheasant that evidently resented being disturbed; or else he was galloping through the park at a break-neck pace on his shaggy Shetland pony. And then, like some grim spectre, the image of his father came gliding in, and all the happy pictures vanished, as when the dark slide of a magic lantern is suddenly shut down.
He came back to the present and its more immediate interests with a sigh.
There were several circumstances in his life since they had last met, of which he had hinted nothing to Boyd, and he was grateful to his friend for having forborne to question him more closely, as many men in like circumstances would not have failed to do.