Yet, unaccountably, a vague restlessness, a feeling that grew to
dissatisfaction, came into his mind. He was troubled as if by some half
forgotten duty, by the sense of things important slipping from him amidst
this light and brilliance. The attraction that these ladies who crowded
about him were beginning to exercise ceased. He no longer gave vague and
clumsy responses to the subtly amorous advances that he was now assured
were being made to him, and his eyes wandered for another sight of the
girl of the first revolt.
Where, precisely, had he seen her?...
Graham was in one of the upper galleries in conversation with a
bright-eyed lady on the subject of Eadhamite--the subject was his choice
and not hers. He had interrupted her warm assurances of personal devotion
with a matter-of-fact inquiry. He found her, as he had already found
several other latter-day women that night, less well informed than
charming. Suddenly, struggling against the eddying drift of nearer
melody, the song of the Revolt, the great song he had heard in the Hall,
hoarse and massive, came beating down to him.
Ah! Now he remembered!
He glanced up startled, and perceived above him an _oeil de boeuf_
through which this song had come, and beyond, the upper courses of cable,
the blue haze, and the pendant fabric of the lights of the public ways.
He heard the song break into a tumult of voices and cease. He perceived
quite clearly the drone and tumult of the moving platforms and a murmur
of many people.
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