It occurred to Graham that she expected him to lead these marching
people, that that was the thing he had to do. He made the offer abruptly.
He addressed the man in yellow, but he spoke to her. He saw her face
respond. "Here I am doing nothing," he said.
"It is impossible," protested the man in yellow. "It is a fight in a
warren. Your place is here."
He explained elaborately. He motioned towards the room where Graham must
wait, he insisted no other course was possible. "We must know where you
are," he said. "At any moment a crisis may arise needing your presence
and decision."
A picture had drifted through his mind of such a vast dramatic struggle
as the masses in the ruins had suggested. But here was no spectacular
battle-field such as he imagined. Instead was seclusion--and suspense. It
was only as the afternoon wore on that he pieced together a truer picture
of the fight that was raging, inaudibly and invisibly, within four miles
of him, beneath the Roehampton stage. A strange and unprecedented contest
it was, a battle that was a hundred thousand little battles, a battle in
a sponge of ways and channels, fought out of sight of sky or sun under
the electric glare, fought out in a vast confusion by multitudes
untrained in arms, led chiefly by acclamation, multitudes dulled by
mindless labour and enervated by the tradition of two hundred years of
servile security against multitudes demoralised by lives of venial
privilege and sensual indulgence.
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