The Illustrious Prince Part 44

He shook his head.

"I think," he said, "that the portion of our education which we have most grievously neglected is the development of our recreations. But then you must remember that we are to a certain extent without that craving for amus.e.m.e.nt which makes these things necessary for you others.

We are perhaps too serious in my country, Lady Grace. We lack altogether that delightful air of irresponsibility with which you Londoners seem to make your effortless way through life."

She was a little perplexed.

"I don't believe," she said, "that in your heart you approve of us at all."

"Do not say that, Lady Grace," he begged. "It is simply that I have been brought up in so different a school. This sort of thing is very wonderful, and I shall surely miss it. Yet nowadays the world is being linked together in marvellous fas.h.i.+on. Tokio and London are closer today than ever they have been in the world's history."

"And our people?" she asked. "Do you really think that our people are so far apart? Between you and me, for instance," she added, meaning to ask the question naturally enough, but suddenly losing confidence and looking away from him,--"between you and me there seems no radical difference of race. You might almost be an Englishman--not one of these men of fas.h.i.+on, of course, but a statesman or a man of letters, some one who had taken hold of the serious side of life."

"You pay me a very delightful compliment," he murmured.

"Please repay me, then, by being candid," she answered. "Consider for a moment that I am a typical English girl, and tell me whether I am so very different from the j.a.panese women of your own cla.s.s?"

He hesitated for a moment. The question was not without its embarra.s.sments.

"Men," he said, "are very much the same, all the world over. They are like the coa.r.s.e gra.s.s which grows everywhere. But the flowers, you know, are different in every country."

Lady Grace sighed. Perhaps she had been a trifle too daring! She was willing enough, at any rate, to let the subject drift away.

"Soon the curtain will go up," she said, "and we can talk no longer.

I should like to tell you, though, how glad I am--how glad we all are--that you can come to us next week."

"I can a.s.sure you that I am looking forward to it," he answered a little gravely. "It is my farewell to all of you, you know, and it seems to me that those who will be your father's guests are just those with whom I have been on the most intimate terms since I came to England."

She nodded.

"Penelope is coming," she said quickly,--"you know that?--Penelope and Sir Charles Somerfield."

"Yes," he answered, "I heard so."

The curtain went up. The faint murmur of the violins was suddenly caught up and absorbed in the thunderous music of a march. Lady Grace moved nearer to the front. Prince Maiyo remained where he was among the shadows. The music was in his ears, but his eyes were half closed.

CHAPTER XXVIII. PATRIOTISM

The Duke's chef had served an Emperor with honor--the billiard room at Devenham Castle was the most comfortable room upon earth. The three men who sat together upon a huge divan, the three men most powerful in directing the councils of their country, felt a gentle wave of optimism stealing through their quickened blood. Nevertheless this was a serious matter which occupied their thoughts.

"We are becoming," the Prime Minister said, "much too modern. We are becoming over-civilized out of any similitude to a nation of men of blood and brawn."

"You are quoting some impossible person," Sir Edward Bransome declared.

"One is always quoting unconsciously," the Prime Minister admitted with a sigh. "What I mean is that five hundred years ago we should have locked this young man up in a room hung with black c.r.a.pe, and with a pleasant array of unfortunately extinct instruments we should have succeeded, beyond a doubt, in extorting the truth from him."

"And if the truth were not satisfactory?" the Duke asked, lighting a cigar.

"We should have endeavored to change his point of view," the Prime Minister continued, "even if we had to change at the same time the outline of his particularly graceful figure. The age of thumbscrews and the rack was, after all, a very virile age. Just consider for a moment our positions--three of the greatest and most brilliant statesmen of our day--and we can do very little save wait for this young man to declare himself. We are the puppets with whom he plays. It rests with him whether our names are written upon the scroll of fame or whether our administration is dismissed in half a dozen contemptuous words by the coming historian. It rests with him whether our friend Bransome here shall be proclaimed the greatest Foreign Minister that ever breathed, and whether I myself have a statue erected to me in Westminster Yard, which shall be crowned with a laurel wreath by patriotic young ladies on the morning of my anniversary."

The Duke stretched himself out with a sigh of content. His cigar was burning well, and the flavor of old Armignac lingered still upon his palate.

"Come," he protested, "I think you exaggerate Maiyo's importance just a little, Haviland. Hesho seems excellently disposed towards us, and, after all, I should have thought his word would have had more weight in Tokio than the word of a young man who is new to diplomacy, and whose claims to distinction seem to rest rather upon his soldiering and the fact that he is a cousin of the Emperor."

The Prime Minister sighed.

"Dear Duke," he said, "no one of us, not even myself, has ever done that young man justice. To me he represents everything that is most strenuous and intellectual in j.a.panese manhood. The spirit of that wonderful country runs like the elixir of life itself through his veins. Since the day he brought me his letter from the Emperor, I have watched him carefully, and I believe I can honestly declare that not once in these eighteen months has he looked away from his task, nor has he given to one single person even an inkling of the thoughts which have pa.s.sed through his mind. He came back from the Continent, from Berlin, from Paris, from Petersburg, with a ma.s.s of acquired information which would have made some of our blue-books read like Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales.

He had made up his mind exactly what he thought of each country, of their political systems, of their social life, of their military importance. He had them all weighed up in the hollow of his hand. He was willing to talk as long as I, for instance, was willing to listen. He spoke of everybody whom he had met and every place which he had visited without reserve, and yet I guarantee that there is no person in England today, however much he may have talked with him, who knows in the least what his true impressions are."

"Haviland is right," Bransome agreed. "Many a time I have caught myself wondering, when he talks so easily about his travels, what the real thoughts are which lie at the back of his brain. We know, of course, what the object of those travels was. He went as no tourist. He went with a deep and solemn purpose always before him. He went to find out whether there was any other European Power whose alliance would be a more advantageous thing for j.a.pan than a continuation of their alliance with us. Such a thing has never been mentioned or hinted at between us, but we know it all the same."

"I wonder," the Duke remarked, "whether we shall really get the truth out of him before he goes."

The Prime Minister shook his head.

"Look at him now teaching old Lady Saunderson how to hold her cue. He singled her out because she was the least attractive person playing, because no one took any particular notice of her, and every one seemed disposed to let her go her own way! Those girls were all buzzing around him as though he were something holy, but you see how gently he eluded them! Watch what an interest she is taking in the game now. He has been encouraging the poor old lady until her last few shots have been quite good. That is Maiyo all the world over. I will wager that he is thinking of nothing on earth at this moment but of making that poor old lady feel at her ease and enjoy her game. A stranger, looking on, would imagine him to be just a kind-hearted, simple-minded fellow. Yet there is not one of us three who has wit enough to get a single word from him against his will. You shall see. There is an excellent opportunity here. I suppose both of you read his speech at the Herrick Club last night?"

"I did," the Duke answered.

"And I," Bransome echoed. "It seemed to me that he spoke a little more freely than usual."

"He went as near to censure as I have ever heard him when speaking of any of the inst.i.tutions of our country," the Prime Minister declared. "I will ask him about it directly we get the chance. You shall see how he will evade the point."

"You will have to be quick if you mean to get hold of him," the Duke remarked. "See, the game is over and there he goes with Penelope."

The Prime Minister rose to his feet and intercepted them on their way to the door.

"Miss Morse," he said, "may we ransom the Prince? We want to talk to him."

"Do you insinuate," she laughed, "that he is a captive of mine?"

"We are all captives of Miss Morse's," Bransome said with a bow, "and all enemies of Somerfield's."

Somerfield, hearing his name, came up to them. The d.u.c.h.ess, too, strolled over to the fire. The Prime Minister and Bransome returned with Maiyo towards the corner of the room where they had been sitting.

"Prince," the Prime Minister said, "we have been talking about your speech at the Herrick Club last night."

The Prince smiled a little gravely.

"Did I say too much?" he asked. "It all came as a surprise to me--the toast and everything connected with it. I saw my name down to reply, and it seemed discourteous of me not to speak. But, as yet, I do not altogether understand these functions. I did not altogether understand, for instance, how much I might say and how much I ought to leave unsaid."

"We have read what you said," Bransome remarked. "What we should like to hear, if I may venture to say so, is what you left unsaid."

The Prince for a moment was thoughtful. Perhaps he remembered that the days had pa.s.sed when it was necessary for him to keep so jealously his own counsel. Perhaps his natural love of the truth triumphed. He felt a sudden longing to tell these people who had been kind to him the things which he had seen amongst them, the things which only a stranger coming fresh to the country could perhaps fully comprehend.

"What I said was of little importance," the Prince remarked, "but I felt myself placed in a very difficult position. Before I knew what to expect, I was listening to a glorification of the arms of my country at the expense of Russia. I was being hailed as one of a nation who possess military genius which had not been equalled since the days of Hannibal and Caesar. Many things of that sort were said, many things much too kind, many things which somehow it grieved me to listen to. And when I stood up to reply, I felt that the few words which I must say would sound, perhaps, ungracious, but they must be said. It was one of those occasions which seemed to call for the naked truth."