All the way down Berkeley Square the bishop was in full-bodied struggle with himself.  He was trying to control himself, trying to keep within bounds.  He felt that he was stepping too high, that his feet were not properly reaching the ground, that he was walking upon cushions of air.

The feeling of largeness increased, and the feeling of transparency in things about him.  He avoided collision with passers-by—­excessively.  And he felt his attention was being drawn more and more to something that was going on beyond the veil of visible things.  He was in Piccadilly now, but at the same time Piccadilly was very small and he was walking in the presence of God.

He had a feeling that God was there though he could not see him.  And at the same time he was in this transitory world, with people going to and fro, men with umbrellas tucked dangerously under their arms, men in a hurry, policemen, young women rattling Red Cross collecting boxes, smart people, loafers.  They distracted one from God.

He set out to cross the road just opposite Prince’s, and jumping needlessly to give way to an omnibus had the narrowest escape from a taxicab.

He paused on the pavement edge to recover himself.  The shock of his near escape had, as people say, pulled him together.

What was he to do?  Manifestly this opalescent draught was overpowering him.  He ought never to have taken it.  He ought to have listened to the voice of his misgivings.  It was clear that he was not in a fit state to walk about the streets.  He was—­what had been Dr. Dale’s term?—­losing his sense of reality.  What was he to do?  He was alarmed but not dismayed.  His thoughts were as full-bodied as the rest of his being, they came throbbing and bumping into his mind.  What was he to do?

Brighton-Pomfrey ought never to have left his practice in the hands of this wild-eyed experimenter.

Strange that after a lifetime of discretion and men’s respect one should be standing on the Piccadilly pavement—­intoxicated!

It came into his head that he was not so very far from the Athenaeum, and surely there if anywhere a bishop may recover his sense of being—­ordinary.

And behind everything, behind the tall buildings and the swarming people there was still the sense of a wide illuminated space, of a light of wonder and a Presence.  But he must not give way to that again!  He had already given way altogether too much.  He repeated to himself in a whisper, “I am in Piccadilly.”

If he kept tight hold upon himself he felt he might get to the Athenaeum before—­before anything more happened.

He murmured directions to himself.  “Keep along the pavement.  Turn to the right at the Circus.  Now down the hill.  Easily down the hill.  Don’t float!  Junior Army and Navy Stores.  And the bookseller.”

And presently he had a doubt of his name and began to repeat it.

“Edward Princhester.  Edward Scrope, Lord Bishop of Princhester.”