Not the faintest sound came from beneath the cloths.
After a time he went on. The other exit of St. Martin's Street was
being barricaded as he reached it. A large crowd had assembled,
and there was a sound of talking like steady rain. He pushed grimly
through the crowd. He was set apart from the idle crowd. He would tell
the crowd nothing. In a minute he was going westwards on the left
side of Coventry Street again. The other side was as populous with
saunterers as ever. The violet glow-worms still burned in front of the
theatres and cinemas. Motor-buses swept by; taxis swept by; parcels
vans swept by, hooting. A newsman was selling papers at the corner.
Was he in a dream now? Or had he been in a dream in St. Martin's
Street? The vast capacity of the capital for digesting experience
seemed to endanger his reason. Save for the fragments of eager
conversation everywhere overheard, there was not a sign of disturbance
of the town's habitual life. And he was within four hundred yards
of the child's arm and of the spot where the procession of
stretcher-bearers had passed. One thought gradually gained ascendancy
in his mind: "I am saved!" It became exultant: "I might have been
blown to bits, but I am saved!" Despite the world's anguish and the
besetting imminence of danger, life and the city which he inhabited
had never seemed so enchanting, so lovely, as they did then.
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