"My boy, I will offer you another piece of advice," he remarked. "It is a mistake I do not often make." His habits of speech were too much for him. Even now, when he was patently in earnest, the little man could not be grave. "My advice is this--never attempt to put, never think, even in your own mind, of putting Judith, at the head of any procession. It is not Judith's place. Her place is in the background, the best place, the place that the best women always choose, in life. 'Cynthia' again! Pure 'Cynthia'! Welcome, you minx! If you ever attempt to take Judith out of the background, out of the background which she has chosen for herself, you will encounter inevitable disappointment, and cause yourself, and so her, pain. And you will spoil the--friendship--between you and Judith, which I have found so much--pleasure in watching. That is not 'Cynthia.' It is myself, plain James Bond. My advice, you see, like everybody else's, is, by no means, disinterested." The King smiled at the little man, almost in spite of himself. This was the true Uncle Bond. This was Uncle Bond's way. "I wonder if you are right, Uncle Bond? I am afraid, my own feeling suggests, that you are," he murmured. "And yet, somehow, I am not sure--" Unconsciously, he slowed down the car, yet once again, as he spoke. The little man had stirred thoughts in him which required deliberate, and careful, expression. "I have not thought very much about the procession, myself, until just lately," he said. "But it seems to me, you know, that we none of us, men and women alike, have very much to do with our place in the files. I have never believed in chance. And I am not, I think, a fatalist. And yet, you know, it seems to me that the procession catches us up, and sweeps us along, at the head or the tail, as the case may be, whether we will or no. A man may be caught up, suddenly, into the procession, and swept along with it, into some position, which he never expected to fill, which he would rather not fill, but from which he seems to have no chance of escape. Has he any chance of escape? It is the procession that controls us, I think, not we who control the procession. What do you think? Can a man escape? Can any of us ever really choose our place in the files?" Uncle Bond chuckled delightedly.