Page:The One Woman (1903).pdf/217

 the silent crowd filing out of his presence and out of his life.

He cursed their stolid conservatism.

"The average man does not aspire to liberty of thought," he mused with bitterness, "but slavery of thought. The mob must have its fixed formulas easy to read, requiring no thought. Well, let them go."

Suddenly a confused murmur, with loud voices mingled, came through the doors of the vestibules. The exits were blocked, and the moving crowd halted and recoiled on itself as if hurled back by the charge of an opposing army, and a cheer echoed over their heads.

The people inside, who had been halted, stretched their necks to see over the heads of those in front, crying:

"What is it?"

"What's the matter?"

"It sounds like a riot," some one answered near doors.

Gordon wedged himself through the mass that had been thrown back on the advancing stream and reached the doorway. He was astonished to find packed in the street more than five thousand men, evidently working-men and Socialists. They had been quick to recognise his position in the vigorous statement he had given to the press.

When Gordon's giant figure appeared between the two opposing forces a wild cheer rent the air.