"Just the stars." Sally laughed a little now. But never in her life had she felt so little like laughing. She remembered that she used to think him a bounder; she remembered how much his proposal had annoyed her. Yet he was just the same now--the same Harold Nixey--only raised to a higher power. Once she had despised his habit of thinking aloud, yet now it almost enchanted her.... But she was not very forthcoming. He seemed to have to do the talking for both. "Fritz beginning to get cold feet, do you think?" She didn't think so. "What are you doing now?" It was the dry tone of the professional soldier. "I'm detailed for special duty in France." The tone of Sally was professional also. He sighed a gentle, "When?" "Off to-morrow." He sighed again. "It was not until last evening,"--her voice changed oddly--"that I heard you were at home." "Nice of you to come and see me," he said. "You must excuse the room being in a litter." There was a table in the center on which was a drawing board, geometrical instruments, many sheets of paper. "I've been trying to work. I'm always trying ... but ... you need eyes to be an architect ... you need eyes." Sally was suddenly pierced by the thought of his ambition and his passion for work. He was going to do so much, he had begun so well. "I have an idea for a new cathedral for Louvain. Been studying ecclesiastical architecture for years in my spare time." As he paused his face looked ghastly. "It's all in my head ... but...." "Is it possible"--she could hardly speak--"for any one to help you--in the details, I mean?" "They would have to get right inside my mind ... some one practical ... yet very sympathetic ... and then the chances are that it wouldn't work out." "It might, though." "Somehow, I don't think so." He was curiously frank. "I tell myself it might, just to keep going. There's always the bare chance if I get the right person to help me ... some one with great intelligence, great insight, great sympathy, yet without ideas of their own." "You mean they wouldn't have to know too much?" "That's it ... not know too much. They would have to sink their individuality in ... in one who couldn't.... Your father suggested a partnership. But it wouldn't be fair, would it? Besides I should be terribly trying to work with ... terribly trying ... perhaps impossible." "Do you think you would be?" "In a partnership, yes. It couldn't answer. I'm so creative.... I have always to stamp myself on my work ... if you know what I mean. Then ... as I say ... I don't know yet ... that ... I can pick up all the threads that have been...." "You need," said Sally slowly and softly, "some intelligent amateur, capable of drawing a ground plan, who would give himself up to you."