Slow came the music and the march, till, in silence, the long line wound

in through the Park gate. He heard Annette whisper, "How sad it is and

beautiful!" felt the clutch of her hand as she stood up on tiptoe; and

the crowd's emotion gripped him. There it was--the bier of the Queen,

coffin of the Age slow passing! And as it went by there came a murmuring

groan from all the long line of those who watched, a sound such as

Soames had never heard, so unconscious, primitive, deep and wild, that

neither he nor any knew whether they had joined in uttering it. Strange

sound, indeed! Tribute of an Age to its own death.... Ah! Ah!... The

hold on life had slipped. That which had seemed eternal was gone! The

Queen--God bless her!

It moved on with the bier, that travelling groan, as a fire moves on

over grass in a thin line; it kept step, and marched alongside down the

dense crowds mile after mile. It was a human sound, and yet inhuman,

pushed out by animal subconsciousness, by intimate knowledge of

universal death and change. None of us--none of us can hold on for ever!

It left silence for a little--a very little time, till tongues began,

eager to retrieve interest in the show. Soames lingered just long

enough to gratify Annette, then took her out of the Park to lunch at his

father's in Park Lane....

James had spent the morning gazing out of his bedroom window. The last

show he would see, last of so many! So she was gone! Well, she was

getting an old woman. Swithin and he had seen her crowned--slim slip of

a girl, not so old as Imogen! She had got very stout of late. Jolyon and

he had seen her married to that German chap, her husband--he had turned

out all right before he died, and left her with that son of his. And he

remembered the many evenings he and his brothers and their cronies had

wagged their heads over their wine and walnuts and that fellow in his

salad days. And now he had come to the throne. They said he had steadied

down--he didn't know--couldn't tell! He'd make the money fly still, he

shouldn't wonder. What a lot of people out there! It didn't seem so very

long since he and Swithin stood in the crowd outside Westminster

Abbey when she was crowned, and Swithin had taken him to Cremorne

afterwards--racketty chap, Swithin; no, it didn't seem much longer ago

than Jubilee Year, when he had joined with Roger in renting a balcony in

Piccadilly.




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