In a little while his multitudinous impressions began to organise themselves into a general effect.  At first the glitter of the gathering had raised all the democrat in Graham; he had felt hostile and satirical.  But it is not in human nature to resist an atmosphere of courteous regard.  Soon the music, the light, the play of colours, the shining arms and shoulders about him, the touch of hands, the transient interest of smiling faces, the frothing sound of skilfully modulated voices, the atmosphere of compliment, interest and respect, had woven together into a fabric of indisputable pleasure.  Graham for a time forgot his spacious resolutions.  He gave way insensibly to the intoxication of the position that was conceded him, his manner became more convincingly regal, his feet walked assuredly, the black robe fell with a bolder fold and pride ennobled his voice.  After all, this was a brilliant interesting world.

He looked up and saw passing across a bridge of porcelain and looking down upon him, a face that was almost immediately hidden, the face of the girl he had seen overnight in the little room beyond the theatre after his escape from the Council.  And she was watching him.

For the moment he did not remember when he had seen her, and then came a vague memory of the stirring emotions of their first encounter.  But the dancing web of melody about him kept the air of that great marching song from his memory.

The lady to whom he talked repeated her remark, and Graham recalled himself to the quasi-regal flirtation upon which he was engaged.

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.  He had a vague persuasion that he could not account for, a sort of instinctive feeling that outside in the ways a huge crowd must be watching this place in which their Master amused himself.