The champion of lost causes uttered a short laugh.
“Not so logical as all that,” he answered; “the wind still blows; and Life's not a set of rules hung up in an office. Let's see, where are we?” They had been brought to a stand-still by a group on the pavement in front of the Queen's Hall: “Shall we go in, and hear some music, and cool our tongues?”
Miltoun nodded, and they went in.
The great lighted hall, filled with the faint bluefish vapour from hundreds of little rolls of tobacco leaf, was crowded from floor to ceiling.
Taking his stand among the straw-hatted throng, Miltoun heard that steady ironical voice behind him:
“Profanum vulgus! Come to listen to the finest piece of music ever written! Folk whom you wouldn't trust a yard to know what was good for them! Deplorable sight, isn't it?”
He made no answer. The first slow notes of the seventh Symphony of Beethoven had begun to steal forth across the bank of flowers; and, save for the steady rising of that bluefish vapour, as it were incense burnt to the god of melody, the crowd had become deathly still, as though one mind, one spirit, possessed each pale face inclined towards that music rising and falling like the sighing of the winds, that welcome from death the freed spirits of the beautiful.
When the last notes had died away, he turned and walked out.
“Well,” said the voice behind him, “hasn't that shown you how things swell and grow; how splendid the world is?”
Miltoun smiled.