the clatter of voices was like the sound of waves, as at any cocktail party: an amazing sound, those voices all together. A chorus of talk—it was a music that no one consciously listened to but Sax, as far as he could tell; but as he listened to it he suspected strongly that the sound of it, heard unconsciously, was one of the things that made people at parties so happy and gregarious. Get two hundred people together, talking loudly so that each conversation could be heard only by its small group: such a music they made!
