"I'm several kinds of a fool," he thought, "but I'd like to hear that
voice again and get a glimpse of the face that goes with it. I dare say
she is anything but attractive in the flesh--if she is really in the
flesh at all, which I am beginning to doubt--so I should be disenchanted
if I were to see her, I suppose. But I'd like to _know_!" Yet, after
all, he could not comprehend how such a voice could accompany an
unattractive face. The spirit that animated those tones must needs light
up the most ordinary countenance with character, if not with beauty, he
thought; but he saw no face in the vast audience to which he cared to
assign it. No, _she_ wasn't there. He was sure of that.

But as they left the building and stood upon the pavement, awaiting
their carriage, his blood mounted to his face, dyeing it crimson. In the
sudden silence that mysteriously falls on even vast crowds, sometimes,
he heard that voice again!

It was only a snatch of mischievous laughter from a brougham just being
driven away from the curb, but it was unmistakably _the_ voice. Had the
Boy been alone he would have followed the brougham and solved the
mystery then and there.

The laugh rang out again on the summer evening air. It was like a lilt
of fairies' merriment in the moonlit revels of Far Away! It was the note
of a siren's song, calling, calling the hearts and souls of men! It
was--But the Boy stopped and shook himself free from the "sentimental
rot" he was indulging in.

He turned with a question on his lips, but Verdane had noticed nothing
and the Boy did not speak.