His story
was laughed to scorn at one place, and wiser for that, when at last he
reached a second stairway he professed simply to have news of
extraordinary importance for Ostrog. What it was he would not say. They
sent his note reluctantly. For a long time he waited in a little room at
the foot of the lift shaft, and thither at last came Lincoln, eager,
apologetic, astonished. He stopped in the doorway scrutinising Graham,
then rushed forward effusively.
"Yes," he cried. "It is you. And you are not dead!"
Graham made a brief explanation.
"My brother is waiting," explained Lincoln. "He is alone in the wind-vane
offices. We feared you had been killed in the theatre. He doubted--and
things are very urgent still in spite of what we are telling them
_there_--or he would have come to you."
They ascended a lift, passed along a narrow passage, crossed a great
hall, empty save for two hurrying messengers, and entered a comparatively
little room, whose only furniture was a long settee and a large oval disc
of cloudy, shifting grey, hung by cables from the wall. There Lincoln
left Graham for a space, and he remained alone without understanding the
smoky shapes that drove slowly across this disc.
His attention was arrested by a sound that began abruptly. It was
cheering, the frantic cheering of a vast but very remote crowd, a roaring
exultation. This ended as sharply as it had begun, like a sound heard
between the opening and shutting of a door.
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