St. James’ and Belgravia, Bayswater and Chelsea and the Regent’s Park, the people swarmed down on to the roads where death would presently pass with dusky pomp and pageantry.  Never again would a Queen reign so long, or people have a chance to see so much history buried for their money.  A pity the war dragged on, and that the Wreath of Victory could not be laid upon her coffin!  All else would be there to follow and commemorate—­soldiers, sailors, foreign princes, half-masted bunting, tolling bells, and above all the surging, great, dark-coated crowd, with perhaps a simple sadness here and there deep in hearts beneath black clothes put on by regulation.  After all, more than a Queen was going to her rest, a woman who had braved sorrow, lived well and wisely according to her lights.

Out in the crowd against the railings, with his arm hooked in Annette’s, Soames waited.  Yes! the Age was passing!  What with this Trade Unionism, and Labour fellows in the House of Commons, with continental fiction, and something in the general feel of everything, not to be expressed in words, things were very different; he recalled the crowd on Mafeking night, and George Forsyte saying:  “They’re all socialists, they want our goods.”  Like James, Soames didn’t know, he couldn’t tell—­with Edward on the throne!  Things would never be as safe again as under good old Viccy!  Convulsively he pressed his young wife’s arm.  There, at any rate, was something substantially his own, domestically certain again at last; something which made property worth while—­a real thing once more.  Pressed close against her and trying to ward others off, Soames was content.  The crowd swayed round them, ate sandwiches and dropped crumbs; boys who had climbed the plane-trees chattered above like monkeys, threw twigs and orange-peel.  It was past time; they should be coming soon!  And, suddenly, a little behind them to the left, he saw a tallish man with a soft hat and short grizzling beard, and a tallish woman in a little round fur cap and veil.  Jolyon and Irene talking, smiling at each other, close together like Annette and himself!  They had not seen him; and stealthily, with a very queer feeling in his heart, Soames watched those two.  They looked happy!  What had they come here for—­inherently illicit creatures, rebels from the Victorian ideal?  What business had they in this crowd?  Each of them twice exiled by morality—­making a boast, as it were, of love and laxity!  He watched them fascinated; admitting grudgingly even with his arm thrust through Annette’s that—­that she—­Irene—­No! he would not admit it; and he turned his eyes away.  He would not see them, and let the old bitterness, the old longing rise up within him!  And then Annette turned to him and said:  “Those two people, Soames; they know you, I am sure.  Who are they?”

Soames nosed sideways.

“What people?”

“There, you see them; just turning away.  They know you.”