should do it. And I've
done it! I've done it! I've done it!" The triumph was still so close
behind him that he was constantly realizing it afresh, and saying,
wonder-struck: "I've done it." And the miraculous phantasm of the town
hall, uplifted in solid stone, formed itself again and again in his
enchanted mind, against a background of tremendous new ambitions rising
endlessly one behind another like snowy alps.

"Is this what you call four o'clock?" twittered Adela, between cajolery
and protest, somewhat older and facially more artificial, but eternally
blonde; still holding her fair head on one side and sinuously waving the
palm.

"Sorry! Sorry! I was kept at the last moment by a journalist johnny."

"Oh! Of course!" said Adela, pooh-poohing with her lips. "Of course we
expect that story nowadays!"

"Well, it was a chap from the _Builder_, or I wouldn't have seen him.
Can't trifle with a trade paper, you know."

He thought:

"She's like the rest of them, as jealous as the devil."

Then Lois came into the room, hatted and gloved, in half-mourning. She
was pale, and appreciably thinner; she looked nervous, weak, and weary.
As he shook hands with her he felt very self-conscious, as though in
winning the competition and fulfilling her prophecy he had done
something dubious for which he ought to apologize. This was exceedingly
strange, but it was so. She had been ill after the death of Irene
Wheeler. Having left Paris for London on the day following the races, he
had written to her about nothing in particular, a letter which meant
everything but what it said--and had received an answer from Laurencine,
who announced that her sister was in bed, and likely to be in bed; and
that father and mother wished to be remembered to him. Then he wrote to
Laurencine. When the result of the final competition was published he
had written again to Lois. It seemed to him that he was bound to do so,
for had she not willed and decided his victory? No reply; but there had
scarcely been time for a reply.

"Did you get my letter?" he smiled.

"This afternoon," she said gravely. "It followed me here. Now I have to
go to Irene's flat. I should have been gone in another minute."

"She _will_ go alone," Adela put in anxiously.

"I shall be back for dinner," said Lois, and to the stupefaction of
George she moved towards the door.

But just as she opened the door she turned her head and, looking at
George with a frown, murmured:

"Y