But he played very softly and with great feeling. John sat in the window and let the rich music flow over him in that growing darkness. It was of Ali he thought; and then he was a little boy on the verandah, in the arms of a grown man; suddenly he was standing with him under an almond tree in blossom, and the man's head was bowed in grief; out of the dusk came face after face; what did they here in this scented Eastern Garden? He caught the swift animation of Marsh's glance, about to speak; there was Vernley, the old poise of the head he knew so well; and, somehow, Mr. Fletcher was with them. How wonderfully Lindon was playing--and how insistently came the muffled pulse of a drum, perhaps down the gorge in the old deserted Khan. He must follow it--how it beat through his brain, insistent and full of wonder. He was going towards it, strangely elated. It was quite dark when Lindon struck the last chord and let the sound flow through the room before the pedal-release curtained the room in silence. John started, as if rudely awakened. II It was a London he knew now. He had followed the long social programme reaching its climax in June. He watched the fashionable crowd at Burlington House on private view day; the smaller, but more interesting gathering at the Grosvenor Galleries when the International Society's show opened; concerts at Queen's Hall, first nights at the theatre, garden parties, polo at Hurlingham, the Derby and Goodwood,--all these things occupied his days. It was a vivid, everchanging experience, this life of the journalist, and with it all he touched many circles and found new friends. The cranks, the idealists, the hard relentless men of affairs, the propagators of creeds,--he met them all, and from them learned something. There was a soft spot in the heart of most men if you could touch it; they were very human in one aspect, though he stood appalled at the pace humanity set itself in the mad race to success. How many of these hectic men and women ever realized what life was? They dared not stop to contemplate. On, on, on, lest the horror of their own entity should frighten them. They feared themselves, they must never be left to themselves. Solitude meant madness--there was forgetfulness flowing down the crowded thoroughfares.