a
balcony in Piccadilly.

Jolyon, Swithin, Roger all gone, and he would be ninety in August! And
there was Soames married again to a French girl. The French were a queer
lot, but they made good mothers, he had heard. Things changed! They
said this German Emperor was here for the funeral, his telegram to old
Kruger had been in shocking taste. He should not be surprised if that
chap made trouble some day. Change! H'm! Well, they must look after
themselves when he was gone: he didn't know where he'd be! And now Emily
had asked Dartie to lunch, with Winifred and Imogen, to meet Soames'
wife--she was always doing something. And there was Irene living with
that fellow Jolyon, they said. He'd marry her now, he supposed.

'My brother Jolyon,' he thought, 'what would he have said to it all?' And
somehow the utter impossibility of knowing what his elder brother, once
so looked up to, would have said, so worried James that he got up from
his chair by the window, and began slowly, feebly to pace the room.

'She was a pretty thing, too,' he thought; 'I was fond of her. Perhaps
Soames didn't suit her--I don't know--I can't tell. We never had any
trouble with our wives.' Women had changed everything had changed! And
now the Queen was dead--well, there it was! A movement in the crowd
brought him to a standstill at the window, his nose touching the pane and
whitening from the chill of it. They had got her as far as Hyde Park
Corner--they were passing now! Why didn't Emily come up here where she
could see, instead of fussing about lunch. He missed her at that
moment--missed her! Through the bare branches of the plane-trees he could
just see the procession, could see the hats coming off the people's
heads--a lot of them would catch colds, he shouldn't wonder! A voice
behind him said:

"You've got a capital view here, James!"

"There you are!" muttered James; "why didn't you come before? You might
have missed it!"

And he was silent, staring with all his might.

"What's the noise?" he asked suddenly.

"There's no noise," returned Emily; "what are you thinking of?--they
wouldn't cheer."

"I can hear it."

"Nonsense, James!"

No sound came through those double panes; what James heard was the
groaning in his own heart at sight of his Age passing.

"Don't you ever tell me where I'm buried," he said suddenly. "I shan't
want to know." And he turned from the window. There she went, the old
Queen; she'd had a l