"A tall, fair, goodlooking young man, still in the early twenties, with an open, almost boyish face": "A young man of athletic build, clean-shaven, and very like his dead brother, the Prince, but lacking, perhaps, something of the Prince's personal distinction, and charm": "Thick, fair, curly hair, blue eyes, and a happy, smiling mouth": "A typical young English naval officer, with an eager, boyish face, unclouded, as yet, by any shadow of his high destiny"—it was in phrases such as these that the descriptive writers in the newspapers had described, more or less adequately, the new King's outward appearance. What he was inwardly, what the inner man thought, and felt, and suffered, was not within their province, or their knowledge. At the moment, his outward appearance was completed by an easy fitting, black, smoking jacket, plain evening dress trousers, and a pair of shabby dancing pumps, into which he had changed immediately after the state banquet, which had been the final ordeal of his long and exhausting official day. It was characteristic of the inner man, about whom so little was known, that he should have been thus impatient to throw off the gorgeous uniform, and the many unearned decorations, which the banquet had necessitated. It was characteristic of him, too, that he should be bareheaded, now, and drawing absently at a pipe, which he had forgotten to fill—
All the crowded events of the long, tense, and exhausting Coronation Day which was, at last, happily at an end had seemed strangely unreal to the King. The slow and stately progress to the Abbey in the morning, the huge gilt state coach, the team of cream horses, the gold-coated powdered footmen, the bodyguard of plumed Household Cavalry, the decorated streets, the crowds, the wild cheering, the thousand faces, the thousand eyes, his own mechanical bowing, his own mechanical smile; the protracted, exhausting ceremony in the Abbey, the ermine-caped peers and peeresses, the grotesque gorgeously clad officers of state, the tall figure of the venerable Archbishop with his hands raised in benediction, his own heavy royal robes, the Crown, the bursts of music and of song, the pealing bells, the brilliant uniforms of the soldiery; the streets once again, the crowds and the wild cheering, his own mechanical bowing, his own mechanical smile, the heat, the glitter and the glare, the tension, the thousand flushed curious faces, the thousand eyes, the slow movement of the coach, the secret, hidden, inward fear; the all too short rest in the afternoon, with its few minutes of troubled, nightmare sleep; the interminable state banquet in the evening, the gold plate, the uniforms, the colours, and the lights, the Family, strangely subservient, the congratulations, the speeches, the homage; the dense crowd round the palace after the banquet, his own repeated appearance at the huge, open window above the main entrance, the night air, the thousand eyes yet once again, the cheering, and the lights—all these things had been unreal, unbelievable, the bewildering phantasmagoria of a fevered dream—
Now, as he leant against the roof balustrade, the same sense of unreality which had haunted him all day was still with him.
But he compelled himself to look at the blazing illuminations, none the less.
A man could not afford to live, indefinitely, in a fevered dream.
The trees in the densely thronged Mall were hung with innumerable, coloured electric lights. A blaze of yellow, smokeless flambeaux, on the left, marked the line of Carlton House Terrace. "God Save the King," and "God Save King Alfred the Second"—house after house, in the terrace, repeated the loyal prayers in glittering letters of fire. The same devices were reproduced, in a picturesque setting of crowns and flags, on the lavishly illuminated Admiralty Arch. Beyond was the glare of Trafalgar Square, where the Nelson Column, pricked out in red, white, and blue lamps, soared aloft, a shaft of vivid colours against the dark blue of the night sky. Further away, on the right, the familiar, luminous clock face of Big Ben, which showed that it was already nearing midnight, shone out, brightly, above the golden brilliance of Whitehall. Westminster Abbey towers were touched with fire. Queen Anne's Mansion was a broad, solid wedge of blazing, various colour. Up and down the square tower of the Westminster Cathedral ran a hand of flame, writing a loyal motto, in crabbed, monkish Latin, difficult to translate. On the left, beyond the Green Park, shone the lights of Piccadilly, where the fronts of the clubs vied in patriotic radiance. From the Green Park itself, and from Hyde Park, in the distance, soared rockets, which burst into clusters of red, white, and blue stars, and showers of multi-coloured rain. The cheers of the crowds, in the parks, and in the streets, rose with the rockets, in a regular, muffled roar. Overhead, above the lights, above the rockets, a score or more of illuminated aeroplanes hummed, diving, nose-spinning, side-slipping, and looping the loop, with the agility, the grace, and the breathless swiftness of the aerial acrobats who know not fear.
"God Save the King," and "God Save King Alfred the Second."
The mere repetition of the blazing words impressed them upon the King's notice.
Their irony was his second thought.
Did the people know, the cheering people, far down below there, in the crowded parks, and illuminated streets, that, stereotyped formulae as they were, there was real need, now, for those prayers?