CHAPTER XXIVL
ord john revelby
was speaking. As an Under Secretary of State in the late administration, with interesting explanations of policy to give, he commanded polite attention. He was mildly sarcastic, mildly humorous, silky-voiced, somewhat scholarly, yet distressingly practical, the type of the professional politician in easy circumstances. The packed audience in the drill hall listened with respectful apathy, waiting for the revelations that never came. In Lady Alicia’s ears his words droned somewhat unmeaningly. From her seat on the platform she regarded the mass of human faces. They stretched before her in endless lateral rows until they became blurred bands of pink in the distance. They extended in three tiers, right and left along the two sides, with here and there a break
