What had he to do? And this room's secluded silence was eloquent of
imprisonment!
It came into Graham's mind with irresistible conviction that this series
of magnificent impressions was a dream. He tried to shut his eyes and
succeeded, but that time-honoured device led to no awakening.
Presently he began to touch and examine all the unfamiliar appointments
of the two small rooms in which he found himself.
In a long oval panel of mirror he saw himself and stopped astonished. He
was clad in a graceful costume of purple and bluish white, with a little
greyshot beard trimmed to a point, and his hair, its blackness streaked
now with bands of grey, arranged over his forehead in an unfamiliar but
pleasing manner. He seemed a man of five-and-forty perhaps. For a moment
he did not perceive this was himself.
A flash of laughter came with the recognition. "To call on old Warming
like this!" he exclaimed, "and make him take me out to lunch!"
Then he thought of meeting first one and then another of the few familiar
acquaintances of his early manhood, and in the midst of his amusement
realised that every soul with whom he might jest had died many score of
years ago. The thought smote him abruptly and keenly; he stopped short,
the expression of his face changed to a white consternation.
The tumultuous memory of the moving platforms and the huge facade of that
wonderful street reasserted itself. The shouting multitudes came back
clear and vivid, and those remote, inaudible, unfriendly councillors in
white.
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