of Buckingham Smith, the shy assurance of little old Prince.  He envied the pair.  Their existence had a cloistral quality which appealed to something in him.  They were continually in the studio, morning, afternoon, evening.  They were independent.  They had not to go forth to catch omnibuses and trains, to sit in offices, to utilize the services of clerks, to take orders, to ’Consider the idiosyncrasies of superiors.  They were self-contained, they were consecrated, and they were free.  No open competitions for them!  No struggles with committees and with contractors!  And no waiting for the realization of an idea!  They sat down and worked, and the idea came at once to life, complete, without the necessity of other human co-operation!  They did not sit in front of a painting or etching and say, as architects had too often to say in front of their designs:  “That is wasted!  That will never come into being.”  Architecture might be the art of arts, and indeed it was, but there were terrible drawbacks to it....

And next he was outside in the dark with Marguerite Haim, and new, intensified sensations thrilled him.  She was very marvellous in the dark.

Mr. Haim had not returned.

“Well!” she muttered; and then dreamily:  “What a funny little man Mr. Prince is, isn’t he?” She spoke condescendingly.

“Anyhow,” said George, who had been respecting Mr. Alfred Prince, “anyhow, I’m glad you didn’t go to the concert with him.”

“Why?” she asked, with apparent simplicity.  “I adore the Proms.  Don’t you?”

“Let’s go, then,” he suggested.  “We shan’t be very late, and what else is there for you to do?”

His audacity frightened him.  There she stood with him in the porch, silent, reflective.  She would never go.  For sundry practical and other reasons she would refuse.  She must refuse.

“I’ll go,” she said, as if announcing a well-meditated decision.  He could scarcely believe it.  This could not be London that he was in.

They deposited the portfolio under the mat in the porch.

IV

When they got into the hall the band was sending forth a tremendous volume of brilliant exhilarating sound.  A vast melody seemed to ride on waves of brass.  The conductor was very excited, and his dark locks shook with the violence of his gestures as he urged onward the fingers and arms of the executants flying madly through the maze of the music to a climax.  There were flags; there was a bank of flowers; there was a fountain; there were the huge crimson-domed lamps that poured down their radiance; and there was the packed crowd of straw-hatted and floral-hatted erect figures gazing with upturned, intent faces at the immense orchestral machine.  Then came a final crash, and for an instant the thin, silvery tinkle of the fountain supervened in an enchanted hush; and then terrific applause, with yells and thuds above