"The house," continued the civilian in his colourless tones, "is in
Queen Anne's Gate, number——"
"I know the house," said the King's Messenger quietly. He turned and looked at the clock. "Is that all?" he asked. "If so, I'll go along there now."
"That's all," replied the other, and busied himself with his papers.
"Good night."
Despatch-case in hand, d'Auvergne, the King's Messenger, emerged from the Admiralty by one of the small doors opening on to the Mall. He paused on the step for a moment, meditating. The policeman on duty touched his helmet.
"Taxi, sir?"
"No, thanks," replied d'Auvergne. "I think I'll walk; I've not far to go."
Dusk was settling down over the city as he turned off into St. James's Park, but the afterglow of the sunset still lingered above the Palace and in the soft half-light the trees and lawns held to their vivid green. A few early lamps shone with steady brilliance beyond the foliage.
On one of the benches sat a khaki-clad soldier and a girl, hand-in-hand; they stared before them unsmiling, in ineffable speechless contentment. The King's Messenger glanced at the pair as he limped past, and for an instant the girl's eyes met his disinterestedly; they were large round eyes of china blue, limpid with happiness.
The passer-by smiled a trifle grimly. "Bless 'em!" he said to himself in an undertone. "They don't care if it snows ink…. And all the world's their garden…."
Podgie d'Auvergne had fallen into a habit of talking aloud to himself. It is a peculiarity of men given to introspective thought who spend much time alone. Since the wound early in the war that cost him the loss of a foot he had found himself very much alone, though the role of "Cat that walked by Itself" was of his own choosing. It is perhaps the inevitable working of the fighting male's instinct, once maimed irrevocably, to walk thenceforward a little apart from his fellows—that gay company of two-eyed, two-legged, two-armed favourites of Fate for whom the world was made.