One night, a week or so after his visit to Olivia Gale, he threw down
his pen, read over the last sheet that he had written, and, with a
gesture of impatience, tore it up. Suddenly he discovered that he could
not breathe in the stuffy bedroom. He drew back the curtains and opened
the window and looked out on myriad chimney-pots and a full moon shining
on them from a windless sky. The bright air filled his lungs. Desire for
wider spaces beneath the moon shook him like a touch of claustrophobia.
He thrust on the coat which he had discarded, seized a hat, and,
switching off the light, hurried from the room. He went out into the
streets, noiseless save for the rare, swift motors that flashed by like
ghosts fleeing terrified from some earthly doom.
He walked and walked until he suddenly realized that he had emerged from
Whitehall and faced the moonlight beauty of the Houses of Parliament
standing in majestic challenge against the sky, and the Abbey sleeping
in its centuries of dreams.
Away across the Square, by Broad Sanctuary, was the opening of a great
thoroughfare, and, as his eyes sought it, he confessed to himself the
subconscious impulse that had led him thither. Yet was it not a cheat of
a subconscious impulse? Had he not gone out from the hotel in Kensington
with a definite purpose? As he crossed to Broad Sanctuary and the
entrance to Victoria Street, he argued it out with himself. Anyhow, it
was the most fool of fool-errands. But yet—he shrugged his shoulders
and laughed. To what errand could a fool’s errand be comparable? Only to
that of one pixy-led. He laughed at the thought of his disquisition to
Olivia on the Will-o’-the-Wisp. In the rare instances of the follower of
Faith had he not proclaimed its guidance to the Land of Promise?