seemed closing about him. More than once he caught himself standing quite still, in an attitude of profound meditation, though he was not conscious that he had really been thinking of anything. Evidently the events of the day had shaken him more deeply than he had realized. “Come, old man,” he said at last, “this won’t do. Pull yourself together.” [Pg 56] [Pg 56] And then a sudden vivid memory rose before him of those praying women, of that wrinkled mother gazing despairingly after her youngest born as he was marched away perhaps forever, of the set faces of the crowd shuffling silently homeward—— He had been absently turning over the contents of one of his bags, searching for a necktie, when he found himself staring at a pair of satin ball-slippers, into each of which was stuffed a blue silk stocking. For quite a minute he stared, doubting his own senses; then he picked up one of the slippers and looked at it. It was a tiny affair, very delicate and beautiful—a real jewel in footwear, such as Stewart, with his limited feminine experience, had never seen before. Indeed, he might have doubted that they were intended for actual service, but for the slight discoloration inside the heel, which proved that these had been worn more than once. Very deliberately he drew out the stocking, also a jewel in its way, of a texture so diaphanous as to be almost cobweblike. Then he picked up the other slipper and held them side by side. Yes, they were mates—— “But where on earth could I have picked them up?” he asked himself. “In what strange fit of absent-mindedness could I have packed them with [Pg 57]my things? But I couldn’t have picked them up—I never saw them before——” [Pg 57] He sat down suddenly, a slipper in either hand. They must have come from somewhere—they could not have concealed themselves among his things. If he had not placed them there, then someone else had. But who? And for what purpose? The police? His landlady had said that they had searched his luggage; but what possible object could they have had for increasing it by two satin slippers and a pair of stockings? Such an action was farcical—French-farcical!—but he could not be incriminated in such a way. He had no wife to be made jealous! And even if he had—— “This is the last straw!” he muttered to himself. “Either the world has gone mad, or I have.”
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