"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 towardsher. 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:
"Après la guerreThere'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.