George seized the telephone receiver and called brusquely for attention.

“Is that Mr. Cannon?”

“Yes.  Who is it?”

“Oh!  It’s you, George!  How nice to hear your voice again!”

He recognized, but not instantly, the voice of Lois Ingram.  He was not surprised.  Indeed he had suspected that the disturber of work must be either Lois or Miss Wheeler, or possibly Laurencine.  The three had been in London again for several days, and he had known from Lucas that a theatre-party had been arranged for that night to witness the irresistible musical comedy, The Gay Spark, Lucas and M. Defourcambault were to be of the party.  George had not yet seen Lois since her latest return to London; he had only seen her twice since the previous summer; he had not visited Paris in the interval.  The tone of her voice, even as transformed by the telephone, was caressing.  He had to think of some suitable response to her startling amiability, and to utter it with conviction.  He tried to hold fast in his mind to the image of the perspective with its countless complexities and the co-ordination of them all; the thing seemed to be retreating from him, and he dared not let it go.

“Do you know,” said Lois, “I only came to London to celebrate the sending-in of your design.  I hear it’s marvellous.  Aren’t you glad you’ve finished it?”

“Well, I haven’t finished it,” said George.  “I’m on it now.”

What did the girl mean by saying she’d only come to London to celebrate the end of his work?  An invention on her part!  Still, it flattered him.  She was very strange.

“But Everard’s told us you’d finished a bit earlier than you’d expected.  We counted on seeing your lordship to-morrow.  But now we’ve got to see you to-night.”

“Awfully sorry I can’t.”

“But look here, George.  You must really.  The party’s all broken up.  Miss Wheeler’s had to go back to Paris to-night, and Jules can’t come.  Everything’s upset.  The flat’s going to be closed, and Laurencine and, I will have to leave to-morrow.  It’s most frightfully annoying.  We’ve got the box all right, and Everard’s coming, and you must make the fourth.  We must have a fourth.  Laurencine’s here at the phone, and she says the same as me.”

“Wish I could!” George answered shortly.  “Look here!  What train are you going by to-morrow?  I’ll come and see you off.  I shall be free then.”

“But, George.  We want you to come to-night.”  There seemed positively to be tears in the faint voice.  “Why can’t you come?  You must come.”

“I haven’t finished one of the drawings.  I tell you I’m on it now.  It’ll take me half the night, or more.  I’m just in the thick of it, you see.”  He spoke with a slight resentful impatience—­less at her over-persuasiveness than at the fact that his mind and the drawing were being more and more separated.  Soon he would have lost the right mood, and he would be compelled to re-create it before he could resume the work.  The forcible, gradual dragging away of his mind from its passionately gripped objective was torture.  He had an impulse to throw down the receiver and run off.