His round, bright eyes asked a question that Adriance answered with doubtful truthfulness.
"Oh!" The driver paused, then suddenly slid down the bank.
"Ain't we the hogs," he observed deprecatingly, coming up to the side of the car and offering his lunch-box. "Won't you eat?"
The tired, dark-blue eyes of Tony Adriance met the cheerful, light-blue eyes of the other man. The two men were about the same age, and one of them was desperately lonely and sick of his own thoughts. They both smiled involuntarily.
"Thanks, I will," said Adriance; and took a thick, rye bread sandwich from the box presented. The driver sat down on the running-board of the automobile and there ensued a well-employed silence.
The sandwich was excellent. Adriance had eaten little breakfast; yet, left to himself, he would hardly have thought of food in his bitter preoccupation; but it did him good. The ham smeared with cheap mustard had a zest of its own, a little brutal, perhaps, but effective. It was a generously designed sandwich, too, not a frail wafer. He ate it all, even the acrid crust.
"No, thanks; but that one tasted good." Adriance drew out his cigar-case. "Won't you all have a smoke with me, now?"
The cigars were passed and lighted. Before returning the case, the driver frankly inspected the fine leather toy with the tiny monogram in one corner.
"That's all right," he approved, returning it to its owner. "I was afraid you'd pull out a little gold box of cigarettes."
"Me? I got a pipe three years old that holds _some_ tobacco--that for me. But this cigar is all right. Ever try a pipe?"
The driver leaned back comfortably against the spare tire strapped beside the car, gazing up at the gray, cold sky.
"A pipe, my feet on the kitchen stove, the kids and the missus--me for that, nights."
Adriance looked at him with startled scrutiny. Almost he could have imagined that Elsie Murray had come to the man's side and prompted him. What, was it then real and usual, that homely content she once had painted so vividly? Did most men have such homes?
"Sure, these five years; we got two kids." The boyish driver chuckled and shook his head reminiscently. "Darn little tykes! What they ain't up to I don't know. Dragged a big bull pup in off the street last week, they did, and scared the missus into fits. Pete--he's four--had it by the collar bold as brass, and it ugly enough to scare you. Say, I'm trying one of those schemes for training kids on him; exercising him, you know. You ought to see the muscles he's got already, arms and legs hard as nails. Think it will work all right?"