"You were never expected to act at all. No one counted on your awakening. No one dreamt you would ever awake. The Council had surrounded you with antiseptic conditions. As a matter of fact, we thought that you were dead — a mere arrest of decay. And — but it is too complex. We dare not suddenly — while you are still half awake."
"It won't do," said Graham. "Suppose it is as you say — why am I not being crammed night and day with facts and warnings and all the wisdom of the time to fit me for my responsibilities? Am I any wiser now than two days ago, if it is two days, when I awoke?"
Howard pulled his lip.
"I am beginning to feel — every hour I feel more clearly — a sense of complex concealment of which you are the salient point. Is this Council, or committee, or whatever they are, cooking the accounts of my estate? Is that it?"
"That note of suspicion ———" said Howard.
"Ugh!" said Graham. "Now, mark my words, it will be ill for those who have put me here. It will be ill. I am alive. Make no doubt of it, I am alive. Every day my pulse is stronger and my mind clearer and more vigorous. No more quiescence. I am a man come back to life. And I want to live ———"
"Live!"
Howard's face lit with an idea. He came towards Graham and spoke in an easy confidential tone.
"The Council secludes you here for your good. You are restless. Naturally — an energetic man! You find it dull here. But we are anxious that everything you may desire — every desire — every sort of desire . . . There may be something. Is there any sort of company?"
He paused meaningly.
"Yes," said Graham thoughtfully. "There is."
"Ah! Now! We have treated you neglectfully."
"The crowds in yonder streets of yours."
