ave attempt at cajolery. But in the recesses of his
soul he was not sure that she had not defeated him in this their first
encounter. However, Seven Sachs might talk as he chose--she was not
such a persuasive creature as all that! She had scarcely even tried to
be persuasive.

At about a quarter-past six when he saw his underling again he said to
Mr. Marrier:

"Marrier, I've got a great idea. We'll have that corner-stone-laying
at night. After the theatres. Say half-past eleven. Torchlight!
Fireworks from the cranes! It'll tickle old Pilgrim to death. I shall
have a marquee with matchboarding sides fixed up inside, and heat
it with a few of those smokeless stoves. We can easily lay on
electricity. It will be absolutely the most sensational stone-laying
that ever was. It'll be in all the papers all over the blessed world.
Think of it! Torches! Fireworks from the cranes!... But I won't change
the day--neither for Miss April nor anybody else."

Mr. Marrier dissolved in laudations.

"Well," Edward Henry agreed with false diffidence. "It'll knock spots
off some of 'em in this town!"

He felt that he had snatched victory out of defeat. But the next
moment he was capable of feeling that Elsie April had defeated
him even in his victory. Anyhow, she was a most disconcerting and
fancy-monopolizing creature.

There was one source of unsullied gratification, he had shaved off his
beard.

VI

"Come up here, Sir John," Edward Henry called. "You'll see better, and
you'll be out of the crowd. And I'll show you something."

He stood, in a fur coat, at the top of a short flight of
rough-surfaced steps between two unplastered walls--a staircase which
ultimately was to form part of an emergency exit from the dress-circle
of the Regent Theatre. Sir John Pilgrim, also in a fur coat, stood
near the bottom of the steps, with the glare of a Wells light full on
him and throwing his shadow almost up to Edward Henry's feet. Around,
Edward Henry could descry the vast mysterious forms of the building's
skeleton--black in places, but in other places lit up by bright rays
from the gaiety below, and showing glimpses of that gaiety in
the occasional revelation of a woman's cloak through slits in the
construction. High overhead two gigantic cranes interlaced their arms;
and, even higher than the cranes, shone the stars of the clear spring
night.

The hour was nearly half-past twelve. The ceremony was concluded--and
successfully concl