"Good morning, my boy," he remarked, in Uncle Bond's blandest manner.
In order to shake Button's hand, the King was compelled to release Bill from his prison, under his right arm. Bill, whose happy fate it was to be still only five, the true golden age, had no man of the world pretensions, no sense of shame in his affections. Breaking ruthlessly into Button's formal greeting, he flung both his chubby arms round the King's neck, pulled his head down to be kissed, and then hugged him, with all the force in his lithe little body, chanting in a voice absurdly like Judith's the while—
"Diana's got a foal, all legs and stumpy tail, and a white star on its face. We're making the hay. There's a wren's nest in the garden. It's past six o'clock, and it's a lovely summer morning, and you've got to get up, Uncle Alfred."
From some dusty pigeonhole in his memory, where it had lain since his own far-away childhood, there floated out into the King's mind, a phrase, a sentence—
"And I said I will not put forth mine hand to touch my King, for he is the Lord's Anointed."
It was a phrase, a sentence, which he could trace back to the Bible lessons, which had been as faithfully and remorselessly delivered, on Sunday afternoons, in the Royal nursery, as in any other nursery of the period, when the strict discipline in such matters, derived originally from the now well-nigh forgotten Victorian era, had not been altogether relaxed. It was a phrase, a sentence, which had impressed itself upon his childish imagination, and had, for years, stood between him, and his father, the King. His father had been the Lord's Anointed. As a child he had not dared to put forth his hand to touch him! For years, he had lived in awe, almost in fear, of his own father. Perhaps this was why, even down to the day of his death, the King had always seemed to him to be a man apart, isolated, lonely, remote. Perhaps this was partly why, he himself, now that he was King, was so constantly conscious of his own intolerable isolation.
"And I said I will not put forth mine hand to touch my King, for he is the Lord's Anointed."
If Button and Bill, particularly Bill, whose chubby arms were, even now, tightening around him, knew his real identity, knew that he was the King, "the Lord's Anointed," not a fairy tale King, not a King of their own childish play, but the King, in whose procession they had thought Uncle Alfred might have a place, would not they live in awe of him, would not they fear him, would not the present delightful spontaneity, the fearlessness, the frank embraces, of their intercourse with him, be irreparably injured?
Yes. His decision of the night before must stand.
Button and Bill must never know, Judith and Uncle Bond must never know, his real identity.