y as a
woman whether he should say anything to this boy. While he was
hesitating, young Eastman himself led up to it.

"Saw you in the drug store just now," he remarked.

"Yes; you were with--"

"Bessy Van Dorn--yes. Pretty girl?" Eastman spoke with the
insufferable air of patronizing criticism of extreme masculine youth
towards the opposite sex.

"Very," replied Anderson, dryly.

The young fellow gave a furious puff at his cigar. The smoke came
full in Anderson's face. "Passed here the other evening with two
other young ladies while you were sitting here," young Eastman
remarked, in a curious tone. It was full of pain, but it had a
reckless, devil-may-care defiance in it also.

"Yes," said Anderson, "I think you did. About a week ago, wasn't it?"

"Week ago yesterday. Well, I suppose you've heard the news. It's all
over town."

"You mean--"

"She's engaged."

Anderson felt bewildered. "Yes?" he replied, questioningly.

"She's engaged," the young fellow repeated, with a sobbing sigh,
which he ended in a laugh. "They all do it, sir."

Anderson was too puzzled to say anything.

"Suppose you've heard about the man?" said Eastman, in a nonchalant
voice. He inhaled the smoke from his cigar with an air of abstract
enjoyment.

Anderson unassumedly stared at him. "Why, I thought it was--"

"Who?" asked the young fellow, eagerly.

Anderson hesitated.

"Who did you think it was?" Eastman persisted. He had a pitiful
wistfulness in his face upturned to the older man. It became quite
evident that he had a desire to hear himself named as the accepted
suitor.

"Why, I thought that you were the man!" Anderson answered.

"Everybody thought so, I guess," the young fellow said, with an
absurd and childlike pride in the semblance in the midst of his grief
over the reality. "But--" He hesitated, and Anderson waited, looking
above at the play of lightning in the sky and smoking. "She's gone
and got engaged to a man old enough to be her father. Lord! I guess
he's older than her father--old enough to be her grandfather!" cried
the young fellow, with a burst of grief and rage and shame. "Yes,
sir, old enough to be her grandfather," he repeated. His voice shook.
His cigar had gone out. He struck a match and the head flew off. He
swore softly and struck another. Sometimes a match refusing to ignite
changes mourning to wrath and rebellion. The third match broke short
in two and the burning head flew down on the sidewalk.