or 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."

"That," said Howard, "I am afraid--. But--"

Graham began pacing the room. Howard stood near the door watching him.
The implication of Howard's suggestion was only half evident to Graham
Company? Suppose he were to accept the proposal, demand some sort
of _company_? Would there be any possibilities of gathering from
the conversation of this additional person some vague inkling of
the struggle that had broken out so vividly at his waking moment? He
meditated again, and the suggestion took colour. He turned on Howard
abruptly.

"What do you mean by company?"

Howard raised his eyes and shrugged his shoulders. "Human beings," he
said, with a curious smile on his heavy face.

"Our social ideas," he said, "have a certain increased liberality,
perhaps, in comparison with your times. If a man wishes to relieve such
a tedium as this--by feminine society, for instance. We think it no
scandal. We have cleared our minds of formulae. There is in our city a
class, a necessary class, no longer despised--discreet--"

Graham stopped dead.

"It would pass the time," said Howard. "It is a thing I should
perhaps have thought of before, but, as a matter of fact, so much is
happening--"

He indicated the exterior world.

Graham hesitated. For a moment the figure of a possible woman that
his imagination suddenly created dominated his mind with an intense
attraction. Then he flashed into anger.

"No!" he shouted.

He began striding rapidly up and down the room.

"Everything you say, everything you do, convinces me--of some great
issue in which I am concerned. I do not want to pass the time, as you
call it. Yes, I know. Desire and indulgence are life in a sense--and
D