He strode along the boulevard caring nothing where his footsteps led him. The gay, elegant, careless crowd of Paris passed, but he had no eyes for it all.
“Shall I tell her?” he went on aloud to himself. “Or shall I fade out, and let her learn the worst after I’m gone? Yet would not that be a coward’s action? And I’m no coward. I went through the war—that hell at Vimy, and I did my best for King and Country. Now, when love happens and all that life means to a man is just within my grasp, I have to retire to ignominy or death. I prefer the latter.”
Next morning he stepped from the train at Victoria and drove to his rooms in Bennett Street, St. James’s. He was still obsessed by those same thoughts which had prevented him from sleeping for the past week. His man, Sanford, who had been his batman in France, met him with a cheery smile, and after a bath and a shave he went round to his business in Bond Street.
He was of good birth and had graduated at Brasenose. His father had been a well-known official at the Foreign Office in the days of King Edward and had died after a short retirement. In his life Charlie had done his best, and had distinguished himself not only in his Army career, but in that of the world of motoring, where his name was as well known as any of the fearless drivers at Brooklands.
Otley was, indeed, a real good fellow, whose personality dominated those with whom he did business, and the many cars, from Fords to Rolls, which he sold for the profit of his directors paid tribute to his easy-going merriment and his slim, well-set-up appearance. Those who met him in that showroom in Bond Street never dreamed of the alert leather-coated and helmeted figure who tore round the rough track at Brooklands testing cars, and so often rising up that steep cemented slope, the test of great speed.
At six o’clock on the Wednesday evening he stood in his cosy room in Bennett Street awaiting Peggy. At last there was a ring at the outer door, and Sanford showed her in.
She entered merrily, bringing with her a whiff of the latest Paris perfume, and grasping his hand, cried:
“Well, are you feeling any happier?”
“Happier!” he echoed. “Why, of course!”