We had lunch, and then, inexorably, he went back to his desk. I tried once or twice to make suggestions, but he seemed to mistrust them. Words, he said, came easily to me because I was a journalist, but they were no good to him unless they were the words _he_ wanted.... He didn't want her to think this ... or that ... but something in between--something elusive and perfect--something in his own mind that ever evaded pursuit. If only he could make her see everything as _he_ saw it.... If only the words would come, one after the other in a constant stream, without any agonizing search for them.... But I wondered myself if there _were_ any words for what he felt. XII The time of posting for the night-mail was seven at the latest, and at five I went down to fetch Mizzi. "For God's sake," I told her, "come up and tell him that letters for England don't go on a Sunday. He's trying to write something, and if he doesn't get it done in time, he'll collapse.... Tell him anything you like that'll put him off." She did. She did it rather well. She waited for a few moments till after I had rejoined him, and then came up with some idle chatter about the weather. He was still at his desk, taking hardly any notice of anything but the paper in front of him; and at last, with an excellently assumed air of casualness, she remarked that he seemed busy. He said he was writing a letter. And then she remarked: "If it iss a letter to England, you know of course that there iss no post to-night." He turned round suddenly, astonished, but perhaps, beyond his astonishment, relieved. And she went on: "It iss a new rule. No mails for foreign lands from Saturday night until Monday night." Her tone was just right; he put down his pen, walked across the room, and said, with a sort of moody resignation: "Nothing for it but to wait, then." Then a further idea seemed to occur to him; he exclaimed sharply: "What was it you came up to see me about, Mizzi?" She wasn't altogether prepared for that. She said: "Iss it necessary that I must always haf a special reason when I come up to see you?" And before he could reply she went on: "But of course, I _had_ a reason--it was to ask you--both of you--if you would care to come with me now to the Cathedral...." So we went--the three of us.