About them, the crowd, waiting for no adjournment, was rising, streaming out, falling back as it got to the doors. The Inger, marshalling Lory before him, made his way with the rest. He looked across Lory’s head and above most of the others. He was noticing the people.
There was a fine stalwart lad, he thought—good for the army, and looking ready to shoulder his gun. That chap with the shoulders—what a seat he’d have in the cavalry—or on a broncho, for the matter of that. That fellow there was too old, but he was in excited talk with some one, and both were as eager as boys. Some were still shouting to one another, flushed with immediate purpose. Others were quiet and moved out soberly, as when the lights come back after the great climax. But every one was thrilled and fired by a powerful emotion, and it lived in their faces. The Inger read it there, because he felt it in his own. He warmed to them all.
A man about town, fashionably dressed, and in absorbed talk, came down on the Inger’s foot with shocking vigor.
“I’m so sorry!” he exclaimed in a hurrying falsetto, pitching down three notes of the scale.
“Don’t you give a damn,” said the Inger unexpectedly.
At the door, in the bewilderment of lights and carriage calls and traffic, the Inger stood in complete uncertainty.
“Can you tell me—” “Say, could you tell me—” “Say, which way—” he addressed one or two, but in the inner turmoil of them and in the clamor without, they did not heed him.
The Inger faced the next man, a fat being, with two nieces—one knew that they were nieces; and demanded of him to be told the way to his station.
“Lord bless me,” said the man. “Get on any car going that way!”