“They sound as if they were enjoying themselves down there,” said Tony a little wistfully. The excitement was still in his blood and a wild idea flew into his brain. Why not? But no, it was absurd, he had only known the man quarter of an hour. The lights of the merry-go-round tossed like a thing possessed; whirl and flash, then motionless, and silence again. The murmured hum of voices came to their ears. After all, why not?
“I say,” Tony touched Maradick’s arm, “why shouldn’t we stroll down there, down to the town? It might be amusing. It would be a splendid night for a walk, and it’s only twenty to eleven. We’d be back by twelve.”
“Down there? Now!” Maradick laughed. But he had a strange yearning for company. He couldn’t go back into the hotel, not yet, and he would only lose himself in his own thoughts that led him nowhere if he stayed here alone. A few days ago he would have mocked at the idea of wandering down with a boy he didn’t know to see a round-about and some drunken villagers; but things were different, some new impulse was at work within him. Besides, he rather liked the boy. It was a long while since anyone had claimed his companionship like that; indeed a few days ago he would have repelled anyone who attempted it with no uncertain hand.
“Oh, I say, do!” said Tony, his hand still on Maradick’s arm, and delighted to find that his proposal was being seriously considered. “After all, it’s only a stroll, and we’ll come back as soon as you wish. We can get coats from the hotel; it might be rather amusing, you know.”
He was feeling better already. It was, of course, absurd that he should go out on a mad game like that at such an hour, but—why not be absurd? He hadn’t done anything ridiculous for fifteen years, nothing at all, so it was high time he began.
They went in to get their coats. Two dark conspirators, they plunged down the little crooked path that was the quickest way to the town. On every side of them pressed the smell of the flowers, stronger and sweeter than in the daylight, and their very vagueness of outline gave them mystery and charm. The high peaks of the trees, outlined against the sky, assumed strange and eerie shapes—the masts of a ship, the high pinnacle of some cathedral, scythes and swords cutting the air; and above them that wonderful night sky of the summer, something that had in its light of the palest saffron promise of an early dawn, a wonderful suggestion of myriad colours seen dimly through the curtain of dark blue.