With the quick, impulsive movement of the man who puts an end to hesitation, the King swung round from the stone balustrade, crossed the roof, and so passed, without another glance at the blazing Coronation illuminations, or at the night sky, down the broad, wrought-iron staircase which led from the roof into the palace. CHAPTER II In the anteroom to his own newly decorated suite of rooms, the King found two of his valets still on duty. One of them was Smith, the rubicund, grizzled old sailor, who had been his servant in the Navy. Dismissing the other man with a gesture, the King beckoned to Smith, and entered his dressing room. "I do not want to be disturbed, in the morning, until I ring my bell, Smith," he announced. "I shall probably go out into the garden for a breath of fresh air, last thing. See that the door into the garden is left open. That is all now. Good-night." Smith withdrew, at once, with the bob of his bullet-shaped head, which was the nearest approach he could make to the bow required by etiquette. Left alone, the King glanced round the dressing room. Of all the rooms in the palace which he used habitually, this room had become the most distasteful to the King. The massive, old-fashioned, mahogany furniture, the heavy curtains drawn right across the windows, the thick-piled carpet, and the softly shaded lights, in the room, oppressed him, not so much because of what they were in themselves, as because of what they were associated with, already, in his own mind. It was here that he dressed for Court functions. It was here that he dressed, three or four times a day, not for his own pleasure and convenience, but "suitably for the occasion." A masculine doll. A male mannequin. A popinjay. But he was going to dress to please himself, now, anyway. Moving swiftly about the room, he proceeded to ransack drawers, and to fling open wardrobe doors, as he searched for a particular blue serge suit, of which the Royal staff of valets strongly disapproved. At last he found the suit he sought. A few minutes later, he had effected, unaided, a complete change of toilet. The blue serge suit, instinct with the Navy style that was so much to his mind, together with the grey felt hat, and the light dust coat, which he selected, made an odd, and subtle, difference in his appearance. Before, even in the easy undress of his smoking jacket, he had been--the King. Now he was, in every detail, merely a young naval officer in mufti, rejoicing in shore leave. Looking at himself in the huge, full-length mirror which stood immediately in front of the heavily curtained windows, the King approved this result.