One thing was certain. His announcement, his disclosure, of his real identity must be no longer delayed. Somehow he could not bear to think of accepting Uncle Bond's joyous hospitality, of eating his salt, without first confessing his past deception, and receiving the little man's forgiveness and absolution. It was odd that his conscience should have become suddenly so sensitive in the matter. His feeling was quite irrational, of course—
But how was he to make his announcement? It was not the sort of thing that could be blurted out anyhow. He would have to lead up to it somehow.
"I am, or rather I was, until twelve noon, today—the King! Now I am—on strike—taking a holiday!"
How wildly absurd it sounded!
Such an announcement, however skilfully he led up to it, would carry no conviction with it. Uncle Bond would not, could not be expected to believe him.
Somehow, here in Paradise, he hardly believed in it himself!
The fact was his dual life, the two distinct parts which he had played for so long, had become too much for him. Hitherto, he had been able to keep the two parts, more or less distinct. Now he was trying to play both parts at once. It was a mental, it was almost a physical, impossibility.
"Alfred," "my boy," the sailor who had just been given promotion, the sailor who served the King, never had been, and never could be—the King.
He was a real man, alive, breathing, and thinking, at the moment, here, in the sunlight, by the windows.
The King whom the old Duke of Northborough addressed as "Sir," the King who lived in the palace, guarded night and day by the soldiery and the police, the King who had, at last, asserted himself recklessly, gone on strike, taken a holiday—he was a mere delusion, a dream.