But of the new guns that
Ostrog had made and which were known to be in the city came no news in
spite of Graham's urgency, nor any report of successes from the dense
felt of fighting strands about the flying stages. Section after section
of the Labour-Societies reported itself assembled, reported itself
marching, and vanished from knowledge into the labyrinth of that warfare.
What was happening there? Even the busy ward leaders did not know. In
spite of the opening and closing of doors, the hasty messengers, the
ringing of bells and the perpetual clitter-clack of recording implements,
Graham felt isolated, strangely inactive, inoperative.
His isolation seemed at times the strangest, the most unexpected of all
the things that had happened since his awakening. It had something of
the quality of that inactivity that comes in dreams. A tumult, the
stupendous realisation of a world struggle between Ostrog and himself,
and then this confined quiet little room with its mouthpieces and bells
and broken mirror!
Now the door would be closed and Graham and Helen were alone together;
they seemed sharply marked off then from all the unprecedented world
storm that rushed together without, vividly aware of one another, only
concerned with one another. Then the door would open again, messengers
would enter, or a sharp bell would stab their quiet privacy, and it was
like a window in a well built brightly lit house flung open suddenly to a
hurricane.
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