He began to wonder what he should do when the show was over, and the moment came for every one to leave the tent. He was near the exit; should he hurry out and hasten home, shutting the door of his house behind him, before Clare and Calladine had so much as turned into the street? “Likely they’ll wander home by the fields, being lovers,” he said to himself. Or should he go boldly up to Daisy and invite her to walk home with him, in order to prove to Clare the extent of his indifference? He rejected this course, despising its cheapness. Or should he remain seated where he was, letting Clare and Calladine pass out of the tent before him? The one thing to be avoided was the jostle in the exit. He might get pushed up against her, or against Calladine,--if he felt Calladine jostle against him he would turn and hit him. But he had Olver to reckon with; Olver who would tug at his coat and bid him come, if he tried to remain behind; Olver who would in any case torment him afterwards with questions as whether he had seen Clare; and, half turning to look at Olver, he caught sight of the mirror held tilted, over which the boy stooped with such absorption, and he wondered idly where Olver had got this toy, that seemed so to fascinate him and to occupy so much of his time; but after that passing curiosity he returned to his own miserable concerns that gnawed like rodents at his brain, and his eyes perpetually sought the face of Clare, as though in her fairness lay simultaneously both the problem and the solution. So turned inward upon himself was he, that a sudden shout was the first thing to rouse him. He raised his head; a sheet of flame shot upwards from the gas; all was confusion suddenly; the audience rose and stampeded into the ring, trying to get to the exits; benches were overturned; women screamed, men swore; overhead the flame tore a great hole in the darkness, and portions of the burning canvas floated, turning over and over, down to the ground.