He was well satisfied that he hadn’t his restless companions on his mind now.  He could sit here quietly until noon, and hear the bell strike again.  In the meantime, he must try to think:  This was, of course, Gothic architecture; he had read more or less about that, and ought to be able to remember something.  Gothic... that was a mere word; to him it suggested something very peaked and pointed,—­sharp arches, steep roofs.  It had nothing to do with these slim white columns that rose so straight and far,—­or with the window, burning up there in its vault of gloom....

While he was vainly trying to think about architecture, some recollection of old astronomy lessons brushed across his brain,—­something about stars whose light travels through space for hundreds of years before it reaches the earth and the human eye.  The purple and crimson and peacock-green of this window had been shining quite as long as that before it got to him....  He felt distinctly that it went through him and farther still... as if his mother were looking over his shoulder.  He sat solemnly through the hour until twelve, his elbows on his knees, his conical hat swinging between them in his hand, looking up through the twilight with candid, thoughtful eyes.

When Claude joined his company at the station, they had the laugh on him.  They had found the Cathedral,—­and a statue of Richard the Lion-hearted, over the spot where the lion-heart itself was buried; “the identical organ,” fat Sergeant Hicks assured him.  But they were all glad to leave Rouen.

V

B Company reached the training camp at S—­ thirty-six men short:  twenty-five they had buried on the voyage over, and eleven sick were left at the base hospital.  The company was to be attached to a battalion which had already seen service, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Scott.  Arriving early in the morning, the officers reported at once to Headquarters.  Captain Maxey must have suffered a shock when the Colonel rose from his desk to acknowledge his salute, then shook hands with them all around and asked them about their journey.  The Colonel was not a very martial figure; short, fat, with slouching shoulders, and a lumpy back like a sack of potatoes.  Though he wasn’t much over forty, he was bald, and his collar would easily slip over his head without being unbuttoned.  His little twinkling eyes and good-humoured face were without a particle of arrogance or official dignity.

Years ago, when General Pershing, then a handsome young Lieutenant with a slender waist and yellow moustaches, was stationed as Commandant at the University of Nebraska, Walter Scott was an officer in a company of cadets the Lieutenant took about to military tournaments.  The Pershing Rifles, they were called, and they won prizes wherever they went.  After his graduation, Scott settled down to running a hardware business in a thriving Nebraska town, and sold gas ranges and garden hose for twenty years.  About the time Pershing was sent to the Mexican border, Scott began to think there might eventually be something in the wind, and that he would better get into training.  He went down to Texas with the National Guard.  He had come to France with the First Division, and had won his promotions by solid, soldierly qualities.