"Of course we can't go ahead without rime or reason, but we don't have to stick too close to reason either. They are to be as beautiful as possible, allowing for reductions if we don't raise quite as much as we hope, and extension if we do. That's possible, isn't it?"
"Certainly. I take it there is to be a minimum of beauty below which you will not sink, but you're going to leave the roof off and soar as high as you can."
"Exactly." Jean laughed, and Gregory added a ray of sun slanting across the tower. There was a pause. Was he interested, or wasn't he?
"Well," she demanded at last, "does it appeal?"
Gregory Allen looked at her sharply. He wondered whether, sometimes, she did not pose a little. If he had not been interested by Jean's first note he would not have come, would not have answered the note, probably.
"Of course. That's why I came, to talk over the details. I made a hurried sketch after your note, just a ground floor plan, but I don't think now it will do." He drew a blue-print from his pocket and smoothed it on the desk. "This, followed out, would give plenty of light and sunshine, but there wouldn't be much beauty about it."
There she had sat wondering why he had come, and all the time he had this blue-print in his pocket!
"He's too simple to be out alone, or else a dyed-in-the-wool egotist who expects every one to read his thoughts."
Jean was still concerned with the problem as she bent over the plan, following the line of Gregory's pencil while he explained.
"You see, it's not much more than an improved tenement, this way, a well-ventilated, all-outside-rooms box." He tore the print across and threw the pieces into the waste-basket. "I'll work up something else and let you know as soon as——"