n accomplished. Mr. Alloyd, in
the stress of the job, had even ceased to bring the Russian Ballet
into his conversations. Mr. Alloyd, despite a growing tendency to
prove to Edward Henry by authentic anecdote, about midnight, his
general proposition that women as a sex treated him with shameful
unfairness, had gained the high esteem of Edward Henry as an
architect. He had fulfilled his word about those properties of the
auditorium which had to do with hearing and seeing--in so much that
the auditorium was indeed unique in London. And he had taken care
that the Clerk of the Works took care that the builder did not give up
heart in the race with time.

Moreover, he had maintained the peace with the terrible London County
Council, all of whose inspecting departments seemed to have secretly
decided that the Regent Theatre should be opened, not in June as
Edward Henry had decided, but at some vague future date towards the
middle of the century. Months earlier Edward Henry had ordained and
announced that the Regent Theatre should be inaugurated on a given
date in June, at the full height and splendour of the London season,
and he had astounded the theatrical world by adhering through thick
and thin to that date, and had thereby intensified his reputation as
an eccentric; for the oldest inhabitant of that world could not recall
a case in which the opening of a new theatre had not been promised for
at least three widely different dates.

Edward Henry had now arrived at the eve of the dread date, and if he
had arrived there in comparative safety, with a reasonable prospect of
avoiding complete shame and disaster, he felt and he admitted that
the credit was due as much to Mr. Alloyd as to himself. Which only
confirmed an early impression of his that architects were queer
people--rather like artists and poets in some ways, but with a basis
of bricks and mortar to them.

His own share in the enterprise of the Regent had in theory been
confined to engaging the right people for the right tasks and
situations; and to signing cheques. He had depended chiefly upon Mr.
Marrier, who, growing more radiant every day, had gradually developed
into a sort of chubby Napoleon, taking an immense delight in detail
and in choosing minor hands at round-sum salaries on the spur of the
moment. Mr. Marrier refused no call upon his energy. He was helping
Carlo Trent in the production and stage-management of the play. He
dried the tears of girlish neo