s hard diplomacy. Mr. Lucas made quiet remarks about their
qualities, but George did not respond.

"Look here, old man," said Lucas, "there's no use in all this gloom. You
might think Lucas & Enwright had never put up a building in their lives.
Just as well to dwell now and then on what they have done instead of on
what they haven't done. We're fairly busy, you know. Besides----"

He spoke seriously, tactfully, with charm, and he had a beautiful voice.

"Quite right! Quite right!" George willingly agreed, swinging his stick
and gazing straight ahead. And he thought: "This chap has got his head
screwed on. He's miles wiser than I am, and he's really nice. I could
never be nice like that."

In a moment they were at the turbulent junction of Tottenham Court Road
and Oxford Street, where crowds of Londoners, deeply unconscious of
their own vulgarity, and of the marvellous distinction of Bedford
Square, and of the moral obligation to harmonize socks with neckties,
were preoccupying themselves with omnibuses and routes, and constituting
the spectacle of London. The high-heeled, demure creatures were lost in
this crowd, and Lucas and George were lost in it.

"Well," said Lucas, halting on the pavement. "You're going down to the
cathedral."

"It'll please the old cock," answered George, anxious to disavow any
higher motive. "You aren't coming?"

Lucas shook his head. "I shall just go and snatch a hasty".... 'Cup of
tea' was the unuttered end of the sentence.

"Puffin's?"

Lucas nodded. Puffin's was a cosy house of sustenance in a half-new
street on the site of the razed slums of St. Giles's. He would not
frequent the orthodox tea-houses, which were all alike and which had
other serious disadvantages. He adventured into the unusual, and could
always demonstrate that what he found was subtly superior to anything
else.

"That affair still on?" George questioned.

"It's not off."

"She's a nice little thing--that I will say."

"It all depends," Lucas replied sternly. "I don't mind telling you she
wasn't so jolly nice on Tuesday."

"Wasn't she?" George raised his eyebrows.

Lucas silently scowled, and his handsomeness vanished for an instant.

"However----" he said.

As George walked alone down Charing Cross Road, he thought: "That girl
will have to look out,"--meaning that in his opinion Lucas was not a man
to be trifled with. Lucas was a wise and an experienced man, and knew
the world. And what he did could n