The call of the Gray Seal to arms! Another coup, with its incident danger and peril, that she had planned for him to execute! He could have laughed aloud at the inhuman mockery of it.

The call of the Gray Seal to arms--NOW! When with every faculty drained to its last resource, cornered, trapped, he was fighting for his very existence! "Jimmie, it is half-past eleven now--HURRY!" The words were jangling discordantly in his brain.
And now he laughed outright, mirthlessly.

A young girl hanging on her escort's arm, passing, glanced at him and giggled.

It was a different Jimmie Dale for the moment.

For once his immobility had forsaken him.