onely.

"Well," said Mr. Alloyd, curtly, with a sardonic smile. "They've
telephoned me all about it. I've seen Mr. Wrissell. Just my luck! So
you're the man! He pointed you out to me this morning. My design for
that church would have knocked the West End! Of course Mr. Wrissell
will pay me compensation, but that's not the same thing. I wanted the
advertisement of the building.... Just my luck! Have a drink, will
you?"

Edward Henry ultimately went with the plaintive Mr. Alloyd to his
rooms in Adelphi Terrace. He quitted those rooms at something after
two o'clock in the morning. He had practically given Mr. Alloyd a
definite commission to design the Regent Theatre. Already he was
practically the proprietor of a first-class theatre in the West End of
London!

"I wonder whether Master Seven Sachs could have bettered my day's work
to-day!" he reflected as he got into a taxi-cab. He had dismissed
his electric brougham earlier in the evening. "I doubt if even Master
Seven Sachs himself wouldn't be proud of my little scheme in Eaton
Square!" said he.... "Wilkins's Hotel, please, driver."

PART II

CHAPTER VII

CORNER-STONE

I

On a morning in spring Edward Henry got out of an express at Euston
which had come, not from the Five Towns, but from Birmingham. Having
on the previous day been called to Birmingham on local and profitable
business, he had found it convenient to spend the night there
and telegraph home that London had summoned him. It was in this
unostentatious, this half-furtive fashion, that his visits to London
now usually occurred. Not that he was afraid of his wife! Not that he
was afraid even of his mother! Oh, no! He was merely rather afraid of
himself--of his own opinion concerning the metropolitan, non-local,
speculative and perhaps unprofitable business to which he was
committed. The fact was that he could scarcely look his women in
the face when he mentioned London. He spoke vaguely of "real estate"
enterprise, and left it at that. The women made no inquiries; they too
left it at that. Nevertheless ...!

The episode of Wilkins's was buried, but it was imperfectly buried.
The Five Towns definitely knew that he had stayed at Wilkins's for
a bet, and that Brindley had discharged the bet. And rumours of his
valet, his electric brougham, his theatrical supper-parties, had
mysteriously hung in the streets of the Five Towns like a strange
vapour. Wisps of the strange vapour had concei