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Beaminster did not consciously think of London, but, taking his part in that admirable procession moving slowly and haughtily (but not arrogantly) on its way, his heart beat in unison with its every movement; every tree in the Green Park was his tree, every cigarette in every tobacconist's shop, every shirt in every haberdasher's, every stone in the Devonshire House wall (doomed so immediately to destruction), every flower in the florist's beyond the Berkeley Hotel—they were all his.

Once and again he would stop at a shop window and glance. His pause was slight, his gaze swift and comprehensive. Some daffodils, snatched from the Scillies, stirred his heart. They cost, had he wished to inquire, two shillings a bloom—but what matter since already they were his? He approved of their presence there, and that was enough.

From the corner of Bond Street to the Circus the procession of the possessors of the Town was democratised. Only here and there it appeared intermingled with other processions—the Procession of the Tourists, the Procession of the Hewers of Wood and the Drawers of Water, the Procession of the New Rich, the Procession of the Scavengers, the Procession of the Thieves and Vagabonds, the Procession of the Upholders of Morality, the Procession of Freudians, the Procession of the Thoroughly Married. With none of these did Beaminster have any concern.