He took, in fancy, his composition to pieces, redistributing it into other lines, making other juxtapositions and contrasts.

He shifted this and that candle, he made the spaces different, he effaced the disfigurement of a possible gap.

There were subtle and complex relations, a scheme of cross-reference, and moments in which he seemed to catch a glimpse of the void so sensible to the woman who wandered in exile or sat where he had seen her with the portrait of Acton Hague.

Finally, in this way, he arrived at a conception of the total, the ideal, which left a clear opportunity for just another figure.
"Just one more--to round it off; just one more, just one," continued to hum in his head.

There was a strange confusion in the thought, for he felt the day to be near when he too should be one of the Others.