For once the King was unconscious of this transition. He was thinking of the procession, of Uncle Bond, of Judith, and of himself; their seats at the inn window; his place in the files. Must the whole width of the market-place always lie between them? Must it always be only occasionally, and with some risk—the risk he was running now—that he stepped out of the procession, and slipped, secretly, into the quiet "inn of Content," to look through their window, to stand, for a few moments, at their side? They were in the background. He was at the head of the procession. At the head? Who knew, who could say, where the head or the tail was? Was the band playing—somewhere? He had never heard it. Would he tire of the window view—soon? Was he not tired already, of his place in the files?
Fight for his place? Must he fight? A fight was something. The other fellows were treading very hard on his heels. But was his place worth fighting for? Did he want it? He had not chosen it. It had been thrust upon him. The moments of decision, when a man had to choose his place in the files, about which Uncle Bond had spoken so confidently, had never come to him. Moments of decision? What could he, what did he, ever decide? In the very fight for his place, which was impending, he would not be allowed to commit himself. The fight would be fought for him, all around him, and he, the man most concerned, was the one man who could not, who would not be allowed, to take a side. It was all arranged for him. The old Duke of Northborough, the lightning conductor, would take the shock! And the result? Did he know what he wanted? Did he know his own mind? A half-hearted man! What a faculty Uncle Bond had for hitting on a phrase, a sentence, that stuck, that recurred. It described him. A half-hearted King. A half-hearted friend. A half-hearted—lover.
But was it altogether his fault? Was it not his position, his intolerable isolation, his responsibility, which, by a bitter paradox, was without responsibility, that had thrown his whole life out of gear, and paralysed his will? As a sailor, in his own chosen profession, with responsibility, with the command of men, he had held his own, more than held his own, with his peers. He had had his place, an honourable place, amongst men of the same seniority as himself, and the Navy took the best men, the pick of the country. Yes. He knew what he wanted now. A moment of decision. A moment in which he could be himself. A moment in which he could assert himself, assert his own individuality, recklessly, violently, prove that he was not a half-hearted man, not an automaton, not an overdressed popinjay—
At this point, the appearance of a certain amount of traffic on the road, as the car swept into the fringe of the outer suburbs, and the more careful driving which it entailed, broke the thread of the King's thoughts. The inevitable lowering of the speed of the car which followed, served to remind him anew that he still had a good deal of time to make up, thanks to his loitering with Uncle Bond, if he was to be successful in effecting his return to the palace unobserved. His rising anxiety about this now all important matter led him thenceforward to concentrate the whole of his attention on his handling of the car.
CHAPTER VII
n the outer suburbs, milkmen, postmen, and boys delivering newspapers, were moving from door to door, in the quiet streets of villas. The tramcars, and later the buses, which the car caught up, and passed, were crowded with workmen, being carried at "Workmen's Fares." The shop fronts, in the inner suburbs, gay in the early morning sunlight, with their Coronation flags and decorations, were still all shuttered; but a thin trickle of men and women in the streets, moving in the direction of the railway stations, gave promise already of the impending rush of the business crowd. Coronation Day had come, and gone. The public holiday was over. Now there was work toward.
At the far end of Tottenham Court Road, by which broad thoroughfare he approached, as he had escaped from, the town, the King deliberately varied the route which he had followed the night before. Heading the car straight on down Charing Cross Road, through Trafalgar Square, and so into Whitehall, he turned, at last, into Victoria Street. It was by the side streets, in the vicinity of Victoria Station, that he ultimately approached the palace, and ran out into Lower Grosvenor Place. He did this to avoid the neighbourhood of the parks, and possible recognition by early morning riders, on their way to and from Rotten Row.
Lower Grosvenor Place proved, as usual, deserted. In the secluded, shut-in mews, behind the tall houses, no one, as yet, was stirring. In a very few minutes, the King had successfully garaged the car. Then he slipped hurriedly back across Grosvenor Place. The road was happily still empty, and he reached the small, green, wooden door in the palace garden wall, without encountering anything more formidable than a stray black cat. A black cat which shared his taste for night walking. A purring black cat, which rubbed its head against his legs. A black cat for luck!