A smart trap that he had never seen before had pulled up, midway of the block. An impeccable coachman sat stiffly upon an indubitable box. A man who appeared to have reddish hair, dressed in a brown cutaway suit and Derby hat, a man with a pronounced if close-cropped red moustache and a suggestively interesting band of mourning about his left sleeve, was leaning out, gracefully, graciously, talking to--Martha. And Martha was listening. Henry moved on, little confused pangs of quite unreasonable jealousy stabbing at his heart, and entered the business-and-editorial office of _The Weekly Voice of Sunbury_, where he worked. Here he laid down the _Discourses of Epictetus_ and asked Humphrey Weaver, untitled editor of the paper (old man Boice, the owner, would never permit any one but himself to be known by that title), for the galley proofs of the week's 'Personal Mention.' He found this item:-- Mr James B. Merchant, Jr., of Greggs, Merchant & Co., was a guest of Mr and Mrs Ames at the Country Club on Saturday evening. Mr Merchant has leased for the summer the apartment of M. B. Wills, on Lower Filbert Avenue. That was the man! James B. Merchant was a bachelor, rich, a famous cotillion leader on the South Side, Chicago, an only son of the original James B. Merchant. And Martha had gone to the Country Club Saturday with the Ameses. This curious tension between himself and Martha had then first bordered on the acute. Mr Ames disapproved of Henry; he felt that Martha shouldn't have gone. And now, of course, her lack of consideration for himself was leading her into new complications. He sat moodily fingering the papers on the littered, ink-stained table that served him for a desk. He was disturbed, uncomfortable, but couldn't settle on what seemed a proper mental attitude. He was jealous; but he mustn't let his jealousy carry him to the point of taking a definite stand with Martha, because--well... Life seemed very difficult. 4 The _Voice_ office occupied what had once been a shop, opposite the hotel. The show window of plate glass now displayed the splintery rear panels of old Mr Boice's rolltop desk, that was heaped, on top, with back numbers of the _Voice_, the _Inter Ocean_ and the _Congressional Record_, and a pile of inky zinc etchings mounted on wood blocks. Within, back of a railing, were Humphrey Weaver's desk and Henry Calverly's table. Humphrey was tall, rather thin and angular, with a long face, long nose, long chin, swarthy complexion, and quick, quizzical brown eyes with innumerable fine wrinkles about them. When he smiled, his whole face seemed to wrinkle back, displaying many large teeth in a cavernous mouth.