The Illustrious Prince Part 20

"After all," he said, "you must think it strange of me to be so egotistical--to speak all the time so much of my likes and dislikes. To you I have been a little more outspoken than to others."

"You have found me an interesting subject for investigation perhaps?"

she asked, looking up suddenly.

"You possess gifts," he admitted calmly, "which one does not find amongst the womenfolk of my country, nor can I say that I have found them to any extent amongst the ladies of the English Court."

"Gifts of which you do not approve when possessed by my s.e.x," she suggested.

"You are a law to yourself, Miss Morse," he said. "What one would not admire in others seems natural enough in you. You have brains and you have insight. For that reason I have been with you a little outspoken,--for that reason and another which I think you know of. You see, my time over here grows nearer to an end with every day. Soon I must carry away with me, over the seas, all the delightful memories, the friends.h.i.+ps, the affections, which have made this country such a pleasant place for me."

"You are going soon?" she asked quickly.

"Very soon," he answered. "My work is nearly finished, if indeed I may dignify it by the name of work. Then I must go back."

She shrank a little away from him, as though the word were distasteful to her.

"Do you mean that you will go back for always?" she asked.

"There are many chances in life," he answered. "I am the servant of the Emperor and my country."

"There is no hope, then," she continued, "of your settling down here altogether?"

For once the marble immobility of his features seemed disturbed. He looked at her in honest amazement.

"Here!" he exclaimed. "But I am a son of j.a.pan!"

"There are many of your race who do live here," she reminded him.

He smiled with the air of one who is forced to humor a person of limited vision.

"With them it is, alas! a matter of necessity," he said. "It is very hard indeed to make you understand over here how we feel about such things,--there seems to be a different spirit amongst you Western races, a different spirit or a lack of spirit--I do not know which I should say. But in j.a.pan the love of our country is a pa.s.sion which seems to throb with every beat of our hearts. If we leave her, it is for her good. When we go back, it is our reward."

"Then you are here now for her good?" she asked.

"a.s.suredly," he answered.

"Tell me in what way?" she begged. "You have been studying English customs, their methods of education, their political life, perhaps?"

He turned his head slowly and looked into her eyes. She bore the ordeal well, but she never forgot it. It seemed to her afterwards that he must have read every thought which had flashed through her brain. She felt like a little child in the presence of some mysterious being, thoughts of whom had haunted her dreams, now visible in bodily shape for the first time.

"My dear young lady," he said, "please do not ask me too much, for I love to speak the truth, and there are many things which I may not tell.

Only you must understand that the country I love--my own country--must enter soon upon a new phase of her history. We who look into the future can see the great clouds gathering. Some of us must needs be pioneers, must go forward a little to learn our safest, and best course. May I tell you that much?"

"Of course," she answered softly.

"And now," he added, leaving his seat as though with reluctance, "the d.u.c.h.ess reminded me, above all things, that directly I found you I was to take you to supper. One of your royal princes has been good enough to signify his desire that we should sit at the same table."

She rose at once.

"Does the d.u.c.h.ess know that you are taking me?" she asked.

"I arranged it with her," he answered. "My time draws soon to an end and I am to be spoilt a little."

They crossed the ballroom together and mounted the great stairs.

Something--she never knew quite what it was--prompted her to detain him as they paused on the threshold of the supper room.

"You do not often read the papers, Prince," she said. "Perhaps you have not seen that, after all, the police have discovered a clue to the Hamilton Fynes murder."

The Prince looked down upon her for a moment without reply.

"Yes?" he murmured softly.

She understood that she was to go on--that he was anxious for her to go on.

"Some little doctor in a village near Willington, where the line pa.s.ses, has come forward with a story about attending to a wounded man on the night of the murder," she said.

He was very silent. It seemed to her that there was something strange about the immovability of his features. She looked at him wonderingly.

Then it suddenly flashed upon her that this was his way of showing emotion. Her lips parted. The color seemed drawn from her cheeks. The majordomo of the d.u.c.h.ess stood before them with a bow.

"Her Grace desires me to show your Highness to your seats," he announced.

Prince Maiyo turned to his companion.

"Will you allow me to precede you through the crush?" he said. "We are to go this way."

CHAPTER XIII. EAST AND WEST

After the supper there were obligations which the Prince, whose sense of etiquette was always strong, could not avoid. He took Penelope back to her aunt, reminding her that the next dance but one belonged to him.

Miss Morse, who was an invalid and was making one of her very rare appearances in Society, watched him curiously as he disappeared.

"I wonder what they'd think of your new admirer in New York, Penelope,"

she remarked.

"I imagine," Penelope answered, "that they would envy me very much."

Miss Morse, who was a New Englander of the old-fas.h.i.+oned type, opened her lips, but something in her niece's face restrained her.

"Well, at any rate," she said, "I hope we don't go to war with them.

The Admiral wrote me, a few weeks ago, that he saw no hope for anything else."

"It would be a terrible complication," the d.u.c.h.ess sighed, "especially considering our own alliance with j.a.pan. I don't think we need consider it seriously, however. Over in America you people have too much common sense."

"The Government have, very likely," Miss Morse admitted, "but it isn't always the Government who decide things or who even rule the country.

We have an omnipotent Press, you know. All that's wanted is a weak President, and Heaven knows where we should be!"

"Of course," the d.u.c.h.ess remarked, "Prince Maiyo is half an Englishman.