med their elder.

"I suppose you have the right to jeer at me," she continued slowly. "I'm
left out. I was too cold. I'm too late. I didn't want what was offered
at the time it was offered. What I didn't want once, I can't have now.
And, perhaps, I still don't want it. Tabs used to speak of kingdoms. I
never knew what he meant. You've all found yours--Maisie, Braithwaite,
both of you and even Ann. Everybody, except me." She laughed to prevent
her tears from falling. "I suppose Tabs would tell me that mine's still
round the corner. You would, wouldn't you, Tabs?"

Her need, which had been theirs, penetrated their happiness. They felt
again the old wild pang of neglected loneliness. Sargent's painting
above the mantelpiece, looking down on them, reminded Lady Dawn of her
own forgotten tragedy. It was unendurable that their gladness should
bring sorrow to Terry. With a common instinct they went towards her.
Lady Dawn placed her arms about her. It was Tabs who spoke.

"Little Terry, you're not left out. You're ours more than ever. We've
not robbed you. We couldn't. Of you alone it's true that everything lies
before you. All the time you've had your kingdom, though you didn't know
it. You still have it--the Kingdom of Youth, for which we older people
were all searching."

In the silence that followed there stole to them through the summer
sunshine, above the mutter of London, the music of a distant
barrel-organ. In the mind of Tabs a picture formed; it was of children
dancing along a golden pavement on that first spring morning of his
disillusion. The tune which the barrel-organ played was the same. His
brain sang words to the music:

"Apres la guerre
There'll be a good time everywhere."

And it was no longer an optimism--it was fulfilled promise.

Surely, beyond the bounds of space, Lord Dawn also listened and was
happy. For Tabs, as long as life lasted, it would be the marching-song
of the kingdom round the corner.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Kingdom Round the Corner, by Coningsby Dawson

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