Had not his own pulse quickened, had not his blood flowed more quickly through his veins, at the words? They had acted upon him like the call of a trumpet. To what?
"The King!"
What did the words stand for? For the biggest things. For England, loyalty, patriotism, for ideals of service, personal, and national. No man or woman drinking the toast thought and felt precisely as any other man or woman standing beside them. But they were all united, all their varied thoughts, and ideals, and emotions were linked together by the words.
And he—the King—was the recognized, the accredited, figurehead, of all their varied thoughts, ideals, emotions.
Was not this the reason, that he might serve as a link between the varied ideals of all his people, that the King, his father, had been content to live a man apart, isolated, lonely, remote? Was it not for this that his brother, the Prince, had prepared himself, sacrificing himself, never sparing himself?
And he had followed them unwillingly—
A new resolve, or something as near akin to a new resolve as he dare venture upon, in his new distrust, his new contempt, for himself, was registered by the King, at that moment.
If the old Duke "cut the rope"—and the old Duke would, he must "cut the rope"—he, the King, would shape the course of his life, differently—
It was not, he realized, that these were new thoughts with him. They were, rather, thoughts which had lurked, until now, at the back of his mind, overlaid by that preoccupation with himself, by that thinking first of himself, which given the chance, given the time, it would be his business, now, to alter—
The shutting of the door, behind him, at this point, startled the King out of his reverie.