“Meat-pie.  Large coffee.”

A minute later she dropped the order on the table, as it might have been refuse, and with it a bit of white paper.  The sadness of the city, and the inexplicable sadness of June mornings, overwhelmed George as he munched at the meat-pie and drank the coffee, and reached over for the sugar and reached over for the mustard.  And he kept saying to himself: 

“She doesn’t see her father at all for nearly two years, and then she goes off to him like that in the middle of the night—­at a word.”

III

The office was not at its normal.  The empty cubicle of the factotum looked strange enough.  But there was more than that in the abnormality.  There were currents of excitement in the office.  The door of the principals’ room was open, and George saw John Orgreave and Everard Lucas within, leaning over one of the great flat desks.  The hour was early for Lucas, and self-satisfaction was on Lucas’s face as he raised it to look at the entering of George.

“I say,” he remarked quietly through the doorway, “that town hall scheme is on again.”

“Oh!” said George, depositing his hat and gloves and strolling into the principals’ room.  “Good morning, Mr. Orgreave.  Got the conditions there?” For a moment his attitude of interest was a pose, but very quickly it became sincere.  Astonishing how at sight of a drawing-board and a problem he could forget all that lay beyond them!  He was genuinely and extremely disturbed by the course of affairs at Chelsea; nevertheless he now approached Mr. Orgreave and Lucas with eagerness, and Chelsea slipped away into another dimension.

“No,” said John Orgreave, “the conditions aren’t out yet.  But it’s all right this time.  I know for a fact.”

The offices of all the regular architectural competitors in London were excited that morning.  For the conception of the northern town hall was a vast one.  Indeed, journalists had announced, from their mysterious founts of information, that the town hall would be the largest public building erected in England during half a century.  The scheme had been the sport of municipal politics for many months, for years.  Apparently it could not get itself definitely born.  And now the Town Clerk’s wife had brought about the august parturition.  It is true that her agency was unintentional.  The Town Clerk had belonged to a powerful provincial dynasty of town clerks.  He had the illusion that without him a great town would cease to exist.  There was nothing uncommon in this illusion, which indeed is rife among town clerks; but the Town Clerk in question had the precious faculty of being able to communicate it to mayors, aldermen, and councillors.  He was a force in the municipal council.  Voteless, he exercised a moral influence over votes.  And he happened to be opposed to the scheme for the new town hall.  He gave various admirable reasons for the postponement of the scheme,