The rhythm of the march, the crashing of the band, the lilting motion, the unreality of the crowds gaping on the pavements intoxicated her, and she went swinging on to the tune in a dream of excitement. In the narrower streets the music blazed with sound and fury of determination, urging them on, inspiring them with indomitable energy, inexorable progress. The tops of the houses here seemed to converge, blotting out the sky; and Jenny felt that she was stationary, while they moved on like the landscape of a cinematograph. As the procession swept into Trafalgar Square with its great open space of London sky, the music unconfined achieved a more poignant appeal and infected the mass of arduous women with sentiment, making their temper the more dangerous. The procession became a pilgrimage to some abstract nobility, to no set place. Jenny was now bewitched by the steady motion into an almost complete unconsciousness of the gaping sightseers, thought of them, if she thought of them at all, as figures in a fair-booth to be knocked carelessly backwards as she passed, more vital than they were with their painted grins. In Whitehall the air was again charged with anger. The tall banners far ahead floated on airs of victory. The mounted women rode like conquerors. Then for an instant as Jenny heard from one of the pavement-watchers a coarse and mocking comment on the demonstration, she thought the whole business mere matter for ridicule and recalled the circus processions that flaunted through towns on sunny seaside holiday mornings long ago. Soon, however, the tune reestablished itself in her brain, and once more she swept on to the noble achievement. The houses grew taller than ever; faded into remote mists; quaked and shimmered as if to a fall. Far down the line above the brass and drums was a sound of screaming, a dull mutter of revolution, a wave of execration and encouragement. The procession stopped dead: the music ceased in discords. Two or three of the women fainted. The crowd on either side suddenly came to life and pressed forward with hot, inquisitive breath. Somewhere, a long way off, a leader shrieked, "Forward." Policemen were conjured from the quivering throng. Somebody tore off Jenny's sash. Somebody trod on her foot. The confusion increased. Nothing was left of any procession: everyone was pushing, yelling, groaning, scratching, struggling in a wreck of passions. Jenny was cut off from the disorganized main body, was helpless in a mob of men. The police were behaving with that magnificent want of discrimination which characterizes their behavior in a crisis of disorder. Their tactics were justified by success, and as they would rely on mutual support in the official account of the riot, individual idiocy would escape censure.