Page:MacGrath--The drums of jeopardy.djvu/110

102 On the other hand, you have described me to a dot."

"Quite possibly. Vanity has its uses. It keeps us in contact with bathtubs and nice clothes. I imagine that you would make both husband and comrade; or you would have, twenty years ago"—without intentional cruelty. Wasn't Cutty fifty-two?

"Kitty, you've touched a vital point. It took those twenty years to make me companionable. Experience is something we must buy; it isn't left in somebody's will. Let us say that I possess all the necessary attributes save one." "And what is that?"

"Youth, Kitty. And take the word of a senile old dotard, your young man, when you find him, will lack many of the attributes you require. On the other hand, there is always the possibility that these will develop as you jog along. The terrible pity of youth is that it has the habit of conferring these attributes rather than finding them. You put garlands on the heads of snow images, and the first glare of sunshine—pouf!"

"Cutty, I'm beginning to like you immensely"—smiling. "Perhaps women ought to have two husbands—one young and handsome and the other old and wise like yourself."

Cutty wished he were alone in order to analyze the stab. Old! When he knew that mentally and