ally prevented him
from beginning the day until three o'clock in the afternoon, Mr.
Enwright had given many highly concentrated hours of creative energy to
the design. And Mr. Haim had adorned the sheets with the finest
lettering. The design was held to be very good. The principals knew the
identity of all the other chief competitors and their powers, and they
knew also the idiosyncrasies of the Assessor; and their expert and
impartial opinion was that the Lucas & Enwright design ought to win and
would win. This view, indeed, was widespread in the arcana of the
architectural world. George had gradually grown certain of victory. And
yet, at Mr. Haim's words, his hopes sank horribly away.

"Have we won?" he asked sharply.

"That I can't say, Mr. Cannon," answered Haim.

"Well, then, how do you know he's heard? Has he told you?"

"No," said the factotum mysteriously. "But I think he's heard." And upon
this Mr. Haim slouched off quite calmly. Often he had assisted at the
advent of such vital news in the office--news obtained in advance by the
principals through secret channels--and often the news had been bad. But
the firm's calamities seemed never to affect the smoothness of Mr.
Haim's earthly passage.

The door into the principals' room opened, and Mr. Enwright's head
showed. The gloomy, resenting eyes fixed George for an instant.

"Well, you've lost that competition," said Mr. Enwright, and he stepped
into full view. His unseen partner had ceased to dictate, and the
shorthand-clerk could be heard going out by the other door.

"No!" said George, in a long, outraged murmur. The news seemed
incredible and quite disastrous; and yet at the same time had he not, in
one unvisited corner of his mind, always foreknown it? Suddenly he was
distressed, discouraged, disillusioned about the whole of life. He
thought that Everard Lucas, screwing up a compass, was strangely
unmoved. But Mr. Enwright ignored Lucas.

"Who's got it?" George asked.

"Whinburn."

"That chap!... Where are _we_?"

"Nowhere."

"Not placed?"

"Not in it. Skelting's second. And Grant third. I shouldn't have minded
so much if Grant had got it. There was something to be said for his
scheme. I knew _we_ shouldn't get it. I knew that perfectly well--not
with Corver assessing."

George wondered that his admired principal should thus state the exact
opposite of what he had so often affirmed during the last few weeks.
People were certainly very queer,