The Illustrious Prince Part 12

"Sir Charles is very much in earnest," she whispered, "but very very slow. d.i.c.ky is just the sort of man to spur him on. He admires Penelope, and does not mind showing it. She is such a dear girl that I should love to have her comfortably settled over here."

"She is very intelligent," the Prince said. "She is a young lady, indeed, for whom I have a great admiration. I am only sorry," he concluded, "that I do not seem able to interest her."

"You must not believe that," the d.u.c.h.ess said. "Penelope is a little brusque sometimes, but it is only her manner."

They made their way through the foyer to the round table which had been reserved for them in the centre of the restaurant.

"I suppose I ought to apologize for giving you dinner at such an hour,"

the d.u.c.h.ess remarked, "but it is our theatrical managers who are to blame. Why they cannot understand that the best play in the world is not worth more than two hours of our undivided attention, and begin everything at nine or a quarter-past, I cannot imagine."

The Prince smiled.

"Dear d.u.c.h.ess," he said, "I think that you are a nation of sybarites.

Everything in the world must run for you so smoothly or you are not content. For my part, I like to dine at this hour."

"But then, you take no luncheon, Prince," Lady Grace reminded him.

"I never lunch out," the Prince answered, "but I have always what is sufficient for me."

"Tell me," the d.u.c.h.ess asked, "is it true that you are thinking of settling down amongst us? Your picture is in the new ill.u.s.trated paper this week, you know, with a little sketch of your career. We are given to understand that you may possibly make your home in this country."

The Prince smiled, and in his smile there seemed to be a certain mysticism. One could not tell, indeed, whether it came from some pleasant thought flitting through his brain, or whether it was that the idea itself was so strange to him.

"I have no plans, d.u.c.h.ess," he said. "Your country is very delightful, and the hospitality of the friends I have made over here is too wonderful a thing to be described; but one never knows."

Lady Grace bent towards Sir Charles, who was sitting by her side.

"I can never understand the Prince," she murmured. "Always he seems as though he took life so earnestly. He has a look upon his face which I never see in the faces of any of you other young men."

"He is a bit on the serious side," Sir Charles admitted.

"It isn't only that," she continued. "He reminds me of that man whom we all used to go and hear preach at the Oratory. He was the same in the pulpit and when one saw him in the street. His eyes seemed to see through one; he seemed to be living in a world of his own."

"He was a religious Johnny, of course," Sir Charles remarked. "They do walk about with their heads in the air."

Lady Grace smiled.

"Perhaps it is religion with the Prince," she said,--"religion of a sort."

"I tell you what I do think," Sir Charles murmured. "I think his pretence at having a good time over here is all a bluff. He doesn't really cotton to us, you know. Don't see how he could. He's never touched a polo stick in his life, knows nothing about cricket, is indifferent to games, and doesn't even understand the meaning of the word 'Sportsman.' There's no place in this country for a man like that."

Lady Grace nodded.

"I think," she said, "that his visit to Europe and his stay amongst us is, after all, in the nature of a pilgrimage. I suppose he wants to carry back some of our civilization to his own people."

Penelope, who overheard, laughed softly and leaned across the table.

"I fancy," she murmured, "that the person you are speaking of would not look at it in quite the same light."

"Has any one seen the evening paper?" the d.u.c.h.ess asked. "It is there any more news about that extraordinary murder?"

"Nothing fresh in the early editions," Sir Charles answered.

"I think," the d.u.c.h.ess declared, "that it is perfectly scandalous. Our police system must be in a disgraceful state. Tell me, Prince,--could anything like that happen in your country?"

"Without doubt," the Prince answered, "life moves very much in the East as with you here. Only with us," he added a little thoughtfully, "there is a difference, a difference of which one is reminded at a time like this, when one reads your newspapers and hears the conversation of one's friends."

"Tell us what you mean?" Penelope asked quickly.

He looked at her as one might have looked at a child,--kindly, even tolerantly. He was scarcely so tall as she was, and Penelope's att.i.tude towards him was marked all the time with a certain frigidity. Yet he spoke to her with the quiet, courteous confidence of the philosopher who unbends to talk to a child.

"In this country," he said, "you place so high a value upon the gift of life. Nothing moves you so greatly as the killing of one man by another, or the death of a person whom you know."

"There is no tragedy in the world so great!" Penelope declared.

The Prince shrugged his shoulders very slightly.

"My dear Miss Morse," he said, "it is so that you think about life and death here. Yet you call yourselves a Christian country--you have a very beautiful faith. With us, perhaps, there is a little more philosophy and something a little less definite in the trend of our religion. Yet we do not dress Death in black clothes or fly from his outstretched hand. We fear him no more that we do the night. It is a thing that comes--a thing that must be."

He spoke so softly, and yet with so much conviction, that it seemed hard to answer him. Penelope, however, was conscious of an almost feverish desire either to contradict him or to prolong the conversation by some means or other.

"Your point of view," she said, "is well enough, Prince, for those who fall in battle, fighting for their country or for a great cause. Don't you think, though, that the horror of death is a more real thing in a case like this, where a man is killed in cold blood for the sake of robbery, or perhaps revenge?"

"One cannot tell," the Prince answered thoughtfully. "The battlefields of life are there for every one to cross. This mysterious gentleman who seems to have met with his death so unexpectedly--he, too, may have been the victim of a cause, knowing his dangers, facing them as a man should face them."

The d.u.c.h.ess sighed.

"I am quite sure, Prince," she said, "that you are a romanticist. But, apart from the sentimental side of it, do things like this happen in your country?"

"Why not?" the Prince answered. "It is as I have been saying: for a worthy cause, or a cause which he believed to be worthy, there is no man of my country worthy of the name who would not accept death with the same resignation that he lays his head upon the pillow and waits for sleep."

Sir Charles raised his gla.s.s and bowed across the table.

"To our great allies!" he said, smiling.

The Prince drank his gla.s.s of water thoughtfully. He drank wine only on very rare occasions, and then under compulsion. He turned to the d.u.c.h.ess.

"A few days ago," he said, "I heard myself described as being much too serious a person. Tonight I am afraid that I am living up to my reputation. Our conversation seems to have drifted into somewhat gloomy channels. We must ask Miss Morse, I think, to help us to forget. They say," he continued, "that it is the young ladies of your country who hold open the gates of Paradise for their menkind."

He was looking into her eyes. His tone was half bantering, half serious.

From across the table Penelope knew that Somerfield was watching her closely. Somehow or other, she was irritated and nervous, and she answered vaguely. Sir Charles intervened with a story about some of their acquaintances, and the conversation drifted into more ordinary channels.

"Some day, I suppose," the d.u.c.h.ess remarked, as the service of dinner drew toward a close, "you will have restaurants like this in Tokio?"

The Prince a.s.sented.

"Yes," he said without enthusiasm, "they will come. Our heritage from the West is a sure thing. Not in my days, perhaps, or in the days of those that follow me, but they will come."

"I think that it is absolutely wicked of d.i.c.ky," the d.u.c.h.ess declared, as they rose from the table. "I shall never rely upon him again."