MIDSUMIMER NIGHT'S MADNESS
have overtaken him and, doubtless, subjected him to embarrassing inquisition.
As the ancient four-wheeler rattled noisily over the cobbles, some of the shops were taking down their shutters, the surface cars were beginning to run with increasing frequency, and the sidewalks were becoming sparsely populated. Familiar as the sights were, they were yet somehow strangely unreal to the young man. In a night the face of the world had changed for him; its features loomed weirdly blurred and contorted through the mystical grey-gold atmosphere of the land of Romance, wherein he really lived and moved and had his being. The blatant day was altogether preposterous: to-day was a dream, something nightmarish; last night he had been awake, last night for the first time in twenty-odd years of existence he had lived. …
He slipped unthinkingly one hand into his coat pocket, seeking instinctively his cigarette case; and his fingers brushed the coarse-grained surface of a canvas bag. He jumped as if electrified. He had managed altogether to forget them, yet in his keep-
117
