PART I




CHAPTER III

OLD MR. WELLES AND YOUNG MR. MARSH

_An Hour in the Life of Mr. Ormsby Welles, aet. 67_

March 15, 1920.
3:00 P.M.


Having lifted the knocker and let it fall, the two men stood gazing with
varying degrees of attention at the closed white-painted old door. The
younger, the one with the round dark head and quick dark eyes, seemed
extremely interested in the door, and examined it competently, its
harmoniously disposed wide panels, the shapely fan-light over it, the
small panes of greenish old glass on each side. "Beautiful old bits you
get occasionally in these out-of-the-way holes," he remarked. But the
older man was aware of nothing so concrete and material. He saw the door
as he saw everything else that day, through a haze. Chiefly he was
concerned as to what lay behind the door. . . . "My neighbors," he thought,
"the first I ever had."

The sun shone down through the bare, beautiful twigs of the leafless