Then, when the queen was there the nurse who herself was a great lady of the world, thought of a beautiful thing and asked the chief doctor if it could not be. That the queen should give his decorations to the man who was dying, and that they should tell him, and all the others, that it was the queen. She knew what pleasure it would give him. She knew it would be like a dream to him, a lovely dream thing to happen to him, just at the end. Of course, it would not be official, but what did that signify--now? The man was dying.
The doctor and the queen spoke together for a minute.
The queen had never cried for her own sorrows, but she had tears in her eyes then, and did not mind that every one saw.
When all of those people of the hospital who could come were assembled in the ward, the hospital staff, and all of the wounded who could walk or be carried, the doctor told them, very simply, his voice a little hoarse, that it was the Queen of ---- who was there among them, and that she was going to give his decorations to their comrade. A thrill passed through all the ward as the doctor's voice dropped into silence. No one spoke at all.
The little soldier who was to be so honoured turned his head and looked at the queen.
She was crying very much, but she smiled, and said to him, "You see, my little one, I cry because it is so great an honour for me that I may give his decorations to a soldier of France." She would not have him know that she cried because he was dying. She smiled down at him.
Then she took his papers from the doctor and read his citations out aloud, quite steadily, to all the ward.
She bent down over him and pinned the two medals on his poor nightshirt. "The honour is all mine," she said.
And then she took his head between her hands, as if he had been a child--as if he had been her own son who was so cruelly dead--and kissed his forehead.
They say that royalty must go away out of the world. But how can any one say that who knows beautiful things? There is something so beautiful that belongs only to kingship, something of ideal and dream. It was there, in the hospital ward, when the great lady in the plain, almost poor, dress, her eyes full of tears, was honoured by the honour she might do a little soldier. Only a queen could have made it all seem so beautiful. Only a queen could have kissed a little soldier of the people, who really were her people, so quite as if he had been her child, or have made of kneeling by his bed for a minute quite so simple and proud and symbolic a thing.