Watkins nodded.
"How does it happen you're outside?"
"The committee sent notice that the truce was over."
Johnny uttered an exultant yell, which he cut short shamefacedly when a dozen passersby looked around.
LIX
It happened on this day that Nan Keith had refused an invitation to ride with Ben Sansome, but had agreed as a compromise to give him a cup of tea late in the afternoon. Nan's mood was latterly becoming more and more restless. It was an unconscious reflection of the times, unconscious because she had no real conception of what was going on. In obedience to Keith's positively expressed request she had kept away from the downtown districts, leaving the necessary marketing to Wing Sam. For the moment, as has been explained, her points of touch with society were limited. It happened that before the trouble began the Keiths had been subscribers to the Bulletin and the Herald, and these two journals continued to be delivered. Neither of them gave her much idea of what was really going on. For a moment her imagination was touched by the blank space of white paper the Bulletin left where King's editorials had usually been printed, but Thomas King's subsequent violence had repelled her. The Herald, after rashly treating the "affray" as a street brawl, lost hundreds of subscribers and most of its advertising. It shrunk to a sheet a quarter of its usual size. Naturally, its editor, John Nugent, was the more solidly and bitterly aligned with the Law and Order party. The true importance of the revolt, either as an ethical movement or merely as regards its physical size, did not get to Nan at all. She knew the time was one of turmoils and excitements. She believed the city in danger of mobs. Her attitude might be described as a mixture of fastidious disapproval and a sympathetic restlessness.
About the middle of the afternoon Mrs. Sherwood came up the front walk and rang the bell. Nan, sitting behind lace curtains, was impressed by her air of controlled excitement. Mrs. Sherwood hurried. She hurried gracefully, to be sure, and with a reminiscence of her usual feline indolence; but she hurried, nevertheless. Therefore, Nan herself answered the bell, instead of awaiting the deliberate Wing Sam.
"My dear," cried Mrs. Sherwood, "get your mantle, and come with me.
There's something going to happen-something big!"
She refused to answer Nan's questions.
"You'll see," was all the reply she vouchsafed. "Hurry!"