Page:The Whisper on the Stair by Lyon Mearson (1924).djvu/18

 Valentine Morley did not have to strain a thing. Here were six feet two of manhood, endowed with youth, health, and a dangerous kind of good looks, even to the fascinating cleft in his firm chin—the kind of a man to conquer worlds, if he had to. He did not have to. An industrious and loving parent, now gathered to the bosom of his equally industrious ancestors, had generously left him more millions than there were letters in his illustrious name.

In a desultory fashion, now, Val was engaged in riding his old hobby. He was an amateur of books and bindings, and more of an expert than his careless attitude toward them might indicate. The old zest, however, was gone from the pursuit, much as it had departed from almost every walk of life for Val, since he had returned from his two years as a private in France. His body had returned, but there was something of Val that would always be in France; perhaps it was his former naïve enjoyment in the little things that make up a life and a world.

Nothing nowadays seemed to matter much; his life for the past two years had been so filled with great things that he could not now get himself oriented to the irritating atoms of daily routine. His spirit craved much more than living the usual grind; he rather needed something to bring him out of himself. Bindings could not seem to do it, even the imitation he held in his hand, which was so good an imitation that many an expert would have been deceived. He turned irritably to the old man, Masterson.

“How come you got stuck on this Bauzonnet, Mat?” he inquired. The old man removed his double eyeglasses and looked at him slowly.