But the stranger did not crush easily: "Live far out?" he asked, turning his big, bold eyes on his seatmate and calmly examining him from the toe of a well-worn shoe to the crown of a dusty old hat that Howard was trying to make last till the end of the season. When he had finished the survey his eyes travelled complacently back to his own immaculate attire, and his well-polished shoes fresh from the hands of the city station bootblack. With a well-manicured thumb and finger he flecked an imaginary bit of dust from the knee of his trousers.
Howard named the college town brusquely.
"Ah, indeed!" Another survey brief and significant this time. "I don't suppose you know any people at the college." It was scarcely a question, more like a statement of a deplorable fact. Howard was suddenly amused.
"Oh, a few," he said briefly. (He was just finishing his senior year rather brilliantly and his professors were more than proud of him.) Another glance seemed to say: "In what capacity?" but the elegant youth finally decided to voice another question: "Don't happen to know a fellah by the name of Cloud, I suppose? Al Cloud?"
"I've met him," said Howard with his eyes still on his paper.
"He's from my State!" announced the youth with a puff of importance. "We live next door in California. He's a regular guy, he is. Got all kinds of money coming to him. He'll be of age in a month or two now, and then you'll see him start something! He's some spender, he is."
Howard made no comment, but something in him revolted at the idea of talking over his friend in such company.
"I've got to hunt him up," went on the young man, not noticing that his auditor appeared uninterested. "I'm to stay with him to-night. I was to send a telegram, but didn't think of it till it was almost train time. Guess it won't make much difference. The Clouds always used to keep open house. I suppose they have a swell place out here?"
"Oh, it's quite comfortable, I believe," Howard turned over a page of the paper and fell to reading an article on the high price of sugar and the prospect of a fall.
"You ought to see their dump out in Cally. It's some mansion, believe me! There wasn't anything else in that part of the State to compare with it for miles around. And cahs! They had cahs to burn! The old man was just lousy with gold, you know; struck a rich mine years ago. His wife had a pile, too. Her father was all kinds of a millionaire and left every bit to her; and Al and his sister'll get everything. Seen anything of her? She ought to be a winner pretty soon. She was a peach when she was little. She's some speedy kid! We used to play together, you know, and our folks sorta fixed it up we were just made for each other and all that sorta thing, you know--but I don't know--I'm not going to be bound by any such nonsense, of course, unless I like. One doesn't want one's wife to be such an awfully good shot, fer instance, you know----!"