CHAPTER IV

CHARLEY MAKES A DISCOVERY

A hot day a month later Charley Steele sat in his office staring before
him into space, and negligently smoking a cigarette. Outside there was a
slow clacking of wheels, and a newsboy was crying "La Patrie! La Patrie!
All about the War in France! All about the massacree!" Bells--wedding-
bells--were ringing also, and the jubilant sounds, like the call of the
newsboy, were out of accord with the slumberous feeling of the afternoon.
Charley Steele turned his head slowly towards the window. The branches
of a maple-tree half crossed it, and the leaves moved softly in the
shadow they made. His eye went past the tree and swam into the tremulous
white heat of the square, and beyond to where in the church-tower the
bells were ringing-to the church doors, from which gaily dressed folk
were issuing to the carriages, or thronged the pavement, waiting for the
bride and groom to come forth into a new-created world--for them.

Charley looked through his monocle at the crowd reflectively, his head
held a little to one side in a questioning sort of way, on his lips the
ghost of a smile--not a reassuring smile. Presently he leaned forward
slightly and the monocle dropped from his eye. He fumbled for it, raised
it, blew on it, rubbed it with his handkerchief, and screwed it carefully
into his eye again, his rather bushy brow gathering over it strongly, his
look sharpened to more active thought. He stared straight across the
square at a figure in heliotrope, whose face was turned to a man in