"Papers," added Smith, "can be swiped."
The girl shook her head:
"He's an invalid student from Ypres. He looks quite ill, I think."
"He looks the lunger, all right. But Huns have it, too. What does he do—wander about town at will?"[pg 268]
"He works for us, monsieur. Your suspicions are harsh. Karl is quite harmless, poor boy."
"What does he do after hours?" demanded Sticky Smith, watching the manœuvres of the sickly blond youth and the wheelbarrow.
"Monsieur Smith, if you knew how innocent is his pastime!" she exclaimed, laughing. "He collects and studies moths and butterflies. Is there, if you please, a mania more harmless in the world?... And now I must return to my work, messieurs."
As the two muleteers strode clanking away toward the canal in the meadow, the blond youth turned his head and looked after them out of eyes which were naturally pale and small, and which, as he watched the two Americans, seemed to grow paler and smaller yet.
That afternoon old Courtray, swathed in a shawl, sat on the mossy doorstep and fished among the water weeds of the river. The sun was low; work in the garden had ended.
Maryette had gone up into her belfry to play the sunset hymn on the noble old carillon. Through the sunset sky the lovely bell-notes[pg 269] floated far and wide, exquisitely chaste and aloof as the high-showering ecstasy of a skylark.