door. His caller was Robert Cramier. And at sight of him, all
Lennan's lethargy gave place to a steely feeling. What had brought him
here? Had he been spying on his wife? The old longing for physical
combat came over him. Cramier was perhaps fifteen years his senior, but
taller, heavier, thicker. Chances, then, were pretty equal!

"Won't you come in?" he said.

"Thanks."

The voice had in it the same mockery as on Sunday; and it shot through
him that Cramier had thought to find his wife here. If so, he did not
betray it by any crude look round. He came in with his deliberate step,
light and well-poised for so big a man.

"So this," he said, "is where you produce your masterpieces! Anything
great since you came back?"

Lennan lifted the cloths from the half-modelled figure of his bull-man.
He felt malicious pleasure in doing that. Would Cramier recognize
himself in this creature with the horn-like ears, and great bossed
forehead? If this man who had her happiness beneath his heel had come
here to mock, he should at all events get what he had come to give. And
he waited.

"I see. You are giving the poor brute horns!"

If Cramier had seen, he had dared to add a touch of cynical humour, which
the sculptor himself had never thought of. And this even evoked in the
young man a kind of admiring compunction.

"Those are not horns," he said gently; "only ears."

Cramier lifted a hand and touched the edge of his own ear.

"Not quite like that, are they--human ears? But I suppose you would call
this symbolic. What, if I may ask, does it represent?"

All the softness in Lennan vanished.

"If you can't gather that from looking, it must be a failure."

"Not at all. If I am right, you want something for it to tread on, don't
you, to get your full effect?"

Lennan touched the base of the clay.

"The broken curve here"--then, with sudden disgust at this fencing, was
silent. What had the man come for? He must want something. And, as if
answering, Cramier said:

"To pass to another subject--you see a good deal of my wife. I just
wanted to tell you that I don't very much care that you should. It is as
well to be quite frank, I think."

Lennan bowed.

"Is that not," he said, "perhaps rather a matter for HER decision?"

That heavy figure--those threatening eyes! The whole thing was like a
dream come true!

"I do not feel it so. I am not one of those who let things drift. Please
understand me.