He would complete it some time during the night.
In the morning it could be mounted. The drawings were to go to the north
in a case on the morrow by passenger train, and to be met at their
destination by a commissionaire common to several competitors; this
commissionaire would deliver them to the Town Clerk in accordance with
the conditions. In a few minutes George was at work, excited, having
forgotten all fatigue. He was saying to himself that he would run out
towards eight o'clock for a chop or a steak. As he worked he perceived
that he had been quite right to throw over the second drawing; he
wondered that he could have felt any hesitation; the new drawing would
be immeasurably superior.

Mr. Haim 'stepped up,' discreetly knocking, entering with dignity. The
relations between these two had little by little resumed their old,
purely formal quality. Both seemed to have forgotten that passionate
anger had ever separated them and joined them together. George was
young, and capable of oblivion. Mr. Haim had beaten him in the struggle
and could afford to forget. They conversed politely, as though the old
man had no daughter and the youth had never had a lover. Mr. Haim had
even assisted with the lettering of the sheets--not because George
needed his help, but because Mr. Haim's calligraphic pride needed to
help. To refuse the stately offer would have been to insult. Mr. Haim
had aged, but not greatly.

"You're wanted on the telephone, Mr. Cannon."

"Oh! Dash it!... Thanks!"

After all George was no longer on the staff of Lucas & Enwright, and Mr.
Haim was conferring a favour.

Down below in the big office everybody had gone except the factotum.

George seized the telephone receiver and called brusquely for attention.

"Is that Mr. Cannon?"

"Yes. Who is it?"

"Oh! It's you, George! How nice to hear your voice again!"

He recognized, but not instantly, the voice of Lois Ingram. He was not
surprised. Indeed he had suspected that the disturber of work must be
either Lois or Miss Wheeler, or possibly Laurencine. The three had been
in London again for several days, and he had known from Lucas that a
theatre-party had been arranged for that night to witness the
irresistible musical comedy, _The Gay Spark_, Lucas and M.
Defourcambault were to be of the party. George had not yet seen Lois
since her latest return to London; he had only seen her twice since the
previous summer; he had not visited Paris in the interval.