Colin had been all day invisible. Not fleeing from the pain of seeing Phyllys; that was not his mode. He would have met her this day as the day before, would have talked and made himself agreeable, without a sign of what it meant to himself. But he had in trouble a resource denied to less fortunate mortals. For weeks he had gone without power to model. Now, suddenly, in the thick of victorious strife, a "new idea" had come with its flash of compelling force. In the silence of night it declared itself, taking him captive. Phyllys or no Phyllys, the new idea would not be denied. Sadness fled before it. In the absorption of shaping his vision through plastic clay, all else was forgotten or was remembered as a dream. From early morning till five in the afternoon he scarcely left his modelling-stool. Food was brought, and he swallowed or put it aside; messages were disregarded; friends wishing to see him were sent away. Nothing on earth mattered but to put into form, while the power lasted, this coinage of his imagination. Hours flew as he worked, and when he stopped it was not from mental inability, but from physical exhaustion. Resisting the impulse to fling himself on the sofa, he went to the drawing-room, wondering what others had been after. Their existence looked tame compared with his own. Still, he did remember Phyllys, and even murmured to himself, with an odd smile, that though she could never be his, he would have "this" still. "All alone," he said as he went in. Phyllys answered composedly. "Yes; Mrs. Keith had something to do upstairs. How tired you are!" "Where's Giles?" "He had to go out." One swift glance deciphered her. She poured out tea and brought it to him. It had been an endless day with her, not flying on wings as with him. She was glad to have anything to do. Colin thanked her, refused eatables, drank the tea, and leant back, passing a hand over his face. "Are you wise to work so hard?" she asked. "It's the essence of wisdom." "Not—really!" "If one doesn't capture notions when they come, they—go!" he said tersely. "I suppose I mustn't ask what the notion is." "Something in low relief—historic. Too early a stage yet for words." "But you see it yourself?" "Yes." "It's in the clay. You only have to set it free for other people." "That's my aim." "It always seems to me—ought you to talk?" "It seems to you—?" "Art with you is such a reality." "It 'is' a reality." She would have liked to carry on the subject, but it was kinder to leave him quiet, and she went to the window in Mrs. Keith's fashion. An exclamation all but left her lips at the sight of Giles under a great cedar near. It was Giles; she made out the lines of his solid figure, and pity welled in her heart. She knew how miserable he was, and it was she who had to make him so. If she might but comfort him! Tears came, and she stayed where she was, seeing nothing through the mist. When it cleared, he was gone.