With my clothing nearly torn off and cars in agony from bellowed questions, the only remedy I could think of was to yell to Fred to start up a tune on his concertina; I had seen him change a crowd’s temper many a time in just that way.  But even supposing my advice had been good, he could not get his arms free, and it was Gloria Vanderman who saved that day.

Whoever has tried to write down the quality that makes the college girl, United States or English, what she is has failed, just as whoever has tried to muzzle or discredit her has failed.  She is something new that has happened to the world, not because of men and women and the priests and pundits, but in spite of them.  Part of the reason can be given by him who knows history enough, and commands almost unlimited leisure and page; but that would only be the uninteresting part that we could easily dispense with.  The college girl has happened to the world, as light did in Genesis 1:3.

Gloria Vanderman, with her back against the wall, struggled and contrived to get her foot on Will’s bent knee.  Another struggle sent her breast-high above the sea of sweating faces.  There was fitful light enough to see her by, because the man who held a pine torch was privileged.  If there had not been hot sparks scattering from the thing doubtless they would have closed in on him and crushed it down, and out, but he had elbow-room, and accordingly Gloria’s face glowed golden in its frame of disordered chestnut hair.  One heard her voice because it was clear, and sweet with reasonableness, so that it vibrated in an unobstructed orbit.

“Surely you are not cowards?” she began, and they grew silent, because that idea called for consideration.

“Kagig is a patriot.  Kagig is fighting for all Armenia.  Surely you are not the men to let brave Kagig be tempted away from his post of danger at Zeitoon?  If I know you men and women you will hasten to meet Kagig, taking your food, and weapons, and children with you.  You will hurry—­hurry—­hurry to meet him—­to meet him as near Zeitoon as possible, so as to turn him back to his post of duty!”

Then Ephraim saw his chance.  Some whisperer translated to him and he owned a voice that was worth gold for political purposes.

He took up the tale in Armenian, working himself up into a splendid fervor, and so amplifying the argument that he could almost fairly claim it as his own before he was half-done.  She had introduced the light, but he exploited it, and he knew his nation—­knew the tricks of speech most likely to spur them into action.

Within five minutes they were shoving the stones off the trap at imminent risk of anybody’s legs, and the ladder bent groaning under the weight of twice as many as it ought to bear, as half of them essayed the short cut over the roof.  A blast of sweet air through the opened trap ejected most of the smoky ten-times-breathed stuff out with the climbers; and as the room emptied and we wiped the grimy sweat from our faces I heard Will talking to Gloria Vanderman in a new tongue—­new, that is to say, to the old world.