The tone of
her voice, even as transformed by the telephone, was caressing. He had
to think of some suitable response to her startling amiability, and to
utter it with conviction. He tried to hold fast in his mind to the image
of the perspective with its countless complexities and the co-ordination
of them all; the thing seemed to be retreating from him, and he dared
not let it go.

"Do you know," said Lois, "I only came to London to celebrate the
sending-in of your design. I hear it's marvellous. Aren't you glad
you've finished it?"

"Well, I haven't finished it," said George. "I'm on it now."

What did the girl mean by saying she'd only come to London to celebrate
the end of his work? An invention on her part! Still, it flattered him.
She was very strange.

"But Everard's told us you'd finished a bit earlier than you'd expected.
We counted on seeing your lordship to-morrow. But now we've got to see
you to-night."

"Awfully sorry I can't."

"But look here, George. You must really. The party's all broken up. Miss
Wheeler's had to go back to Paris to-night, and Jules can't come.
Everything's upset. The flat's going to be closed, and Laurencine and, I
will have to leave to-morrow. It's most frightfully annoying. We've got
the box all right, and Everard's coming, and you must make the fourth.
We must have a fourth. Laurencine's here at the phone, and she says the
same as me."

"Wish I could!" George answered shortly. "Look here! What train are you
going by to-morrow? I'll come and see you off. I shall be free then."

"But, George. We _want_ you to come to-night." There seemed positively
to be tears in the faint voice. "Why can't you come? You must come."

"I haven't finished one of the drawings. I tell you I'm on it now. It'll
take me half the night, or more. I'm just in the thick of it, you see."
He spoke with a slight resentful impatience--less at her
over-persuasiveness than at the fact that his mind and the drawing were
being more and more separated. Soon he would have lost the right mood,
and he would be compelled to re-create it before he could resume the
work. The forcible, gradual dragging away of his mind from its
passionately gripped objective was torture. He had an impulse to throw
down the receiver and run off.

The distant squeaking voice changed to the petulant:

"You are horrid. You could come right enough if you wanted to."

"But don't you understand? It's awfully important for me."

He wa