"Funny old top," was Hawksley's comment as they stood before the train gate. "Three months gone we were strangers."
"And now - " began Cutty.
"With hoops of steel!" interrupted Kitty. "You must write, Cutty, and Johnny and I will be prompt."
"You'll get one from the Azores."
"Train going west!"
"Good luck, children!" Cutty pressed Hawksley's hand and pecked at Kitty's cheek. "Shan't go through with you to the car. Kuroki is waiting. Good-bye!"
The redcaps seized the luggage, and Hawksley and his bride followed them through the gate. Because he was tall Cutty could see them until they reached the bumper. Funny old world, for a fact. Next time they met the wounds would be healed - Hawksley's head and old Cutty's heart. Queer how he felt his fifty-two. He began to recognize one of the truths that had passed by: One did not sense age if one ran with the familiar pack. But for an old-timer to jog along for a few weeks with youth! That was it - the youth of these two had knocked his conceit into a cocked hat.
"Poor dear old Cutty!" said Kitty.
"Old thoroughbred!" said Hawksley.
And there you were, relegated to the bracket where the family kept the kaleidoscope, the sea-shell, and the album. His children, though; from now on he would have that interest in life. The blessed infant - Molly's girl - taking a sunbonnet when she might have worn a tiara! And that boy, stepping down from the pomp of palaces to the dusty ranges of Bar-K. An American citizen. It was more than funny, this old top; it was stark raving mad.
Well, he had one of the drums. It reposed in his wallet. Another queer thing, he could not work up a bit of the old enthusiasm. It was only a green stone. One of the finest examples of the emerald known, and he could not conjure up the panorama of murder and loot behind it. Possibly because he was no longer detached; the stone had entered his own life and touched it with tragedy. For it was tragedy to be fifty-two and to realize it. Thus whenever he took out the emerald he found his imagination walled in. Besides, it was a kind of magic mirror; he saw always his own tentative villainy. He was not quite the honest man he had once been.