All at once Judith seemed to divine his distress.
She turned from him quickly.
"Come and see the Imps," she said, "I was just going in, to look at them, when you arrived."
Light of foot, and slender, and tall, she moved off then, on tiptoe, without waiting for him, along the shadowy verandah, towards the open window-door of the night nursery near by.
Conscious of a relief, of which he was somehow ashamed, the King followed her, obediently, on tiptoe in turn.
In the night nursery, the nightlight, which protected Button and Bill from the evil machinations of ghosts and goblins, was burning dimly, in its saucer, on the mantelpiece, but a shaft of bright moonlight revealed the two cots, at the far end of the room, in which the children lay, fast asleep, side by side. Judith was already bending over the foot of the cots, when the King entered the room. She looked round at him, finger on lip, as he approached. Button, flushed and rosy, stirred in his sleep, and flung one small arm out of bed, across the snow-white counterpane. Bill, cherubic and chubby, heroically lying on, lest he should suck, his thumb, never moved.
"They have had a wonderful day," Judith whispered. "We ran our flag up, this morning, in honour of the King, and I tried to make them understand about the Coronation. Bill wanted to know if Uncle Alfred would be in the procession! They would do nothing else for the rest of the day, but play at being King. You see, they took their crowns to bed with them."
She pointed to two crowns, crude, homemade, cardboard toys, covered with gilt and silver paper, which lay, one on each pillow, beside the sleeping children.
A strange thrill, a chill of presentiment, a sense of some impending crisis, which, it seemed, he was powerless to prevent, which he must make no attempt to prevent, ran through the King. He shivered. Then he leant over the cots, and, very carefully, lest he should wake him, picked up the crown which lay on Button's pillow.
The crude, grotesque, cardboard toy made a poignant appeal to him.