e
largest hearing, and conforming herself to a great popular system.
Whether she had struggled or not, there was a catch-penny effect about
the whole thing which added to the fever in his cheek and made him wish
he had money to buy up the stock of the vociferous little boys. Suddenly
the notes of the organ rolled out into the hall, and he became aware
that the overture or prelude had begun. This, too, seemed to him a piece
of claptrap, but he didn't wait to think of it; he instantly edged out
of his place, which he had chosen near the end of a row, and reached one
of the numerous doors. If he had had no definite plan he now had at
least an irresistible impulse, and he felt the prick of shame at having
faltered for a moment. It had been his tacit calculation that Verena,
still enshrined in mystery by her companion, would not have reached the
scene of her performance till within a few minutes of the time at which
she was to come forth; so that he had lost nothing by waiting, up to
this moment, before the platform. But now he must overtake his
opportunity. Before passing out of the hall into the lobby he paused,
and with his back to the stage, gave a look at the gathered auditory. It
had become densely numerous, and, suffused with the evenly distributed
gaslight, which fell from a great elevation, and the thick atmosphere
that hangs for ever in such places, it appeared to pile itself high and
to look dimly expectant and formidable. He had a throb of uneasiness at
his private purpose of balking it of its entertainment, its victim--a
glimpse of the ferocity that lurks in a disappointed mob. But the
thought of that danger only made him pass more quickly through the ugly
corridors; he felt that his plan was definite enough now, and he found
that he had no need even of asking the way to a certain small door (one
or more of them), which he meant to push open. In taking his place in
the morning he had assured himself as to the side of the house on which
(with its approach to the platform) the withdrawing room of singers and
speakers was situated; he had chosen his seat in that quarter, and he
now had not far to go before he reached it. No one heeded or challenged
him; Miss Tarrant's auditors were still pouring in (the occasion was
evidently to have been an unprecedented success of curiosity), and had
all the attention of the ushers. Ransom opened a door at the end of the
passage, and it admitted him into a sort of vestibule, quite