"That is positively the most unkind thing I have ever heard you say," the Duchess declared. "Come along, you good people. Jules has promised me a new omelet, on condition that we sit down at precisely half-past one. If we are five minutes late, he declines to send it up."They took their places at the round table which had been reserved for the Duchess of Devenham,--not very far, Penelope remembered, from the table at which they had sat for dinner a little more than a fortnight ago. The recollection of that evening brought her a sudden realization of the tragedy which seemed to have taken her life into its grip. Again the Prince sat by her side.
She watched him with eyes in which there was a gleam sometimes almost of horror. Easy and natural as usual, with his pleasant smile and simple speech, he was making himself agreeable to one of the older ladies of the party, to whom, by chance, no one had addressed more than a word or so. It was always the same--always like this, she realized, with a sudden keen apprehension of this part of the man's nature. If there was a kindness to be done, a thoughtful action, it was not only he who did it but it was he who first thought of it. The papers during the last few days had been making public an incident which he had done his best to keep secret. He had signalized his arrival in London, some months ago, by going overboard from a police boat into the Thames to rescue a half-drunken lighterman, and when the Humane Society had voted him their medal, he had accepted it only on condition that the presentation was private and kept out of the papers. It was not one but fifty kindly deeds which stood to his credit. Always with the manners of a Prince--gracious, courteous, and genial--never a word had passed his lips of evil towards any human being. The barriers today between the smoking room and the drawing room are shadowy things, and she knew very well that he was held in a somewhat curious respect by men, as a person to whom it was impossible to tell a story in which there was any shadow of indelicacy. The ways of the so-called man of world seemed in his presence as though they must be the ways of some creature of a different and a lower stage of existence. A young man whom he had once corrected had christened him, half jestingly, Sir Galahad, and certainly his life in London, a life which had to bear all the while the test of the limelight, had appeared to merit some such title. These thoughts chased one another through her mind as she looked at him and marvelled. Surely those other things must be part of a bad nightmare! It was not possible that such a man could be associated with wrong-doing--such manner of wrong-doing!
Even while these thoughts passed through her brain, he turned to talk to her, and she felt at once that little glow of pleasure which the sound of his voice nearly always evoked.
"I am looking forward so much," he said, "to my stay at Devenham.
You know, it will not be very much longer that I shall have the opportunity of accepting such invitations.""You mean that the time is really coming when we shall lose you?"she asked suddenly.
"When my work is finished, I return home," he answered. "I fancy that it will not be very long now.""When you do leave England," she asked after a moment's pause, "do you go straight to Japan?"He bowed.
"With the Continent I have finished," he said. "The cruiser which His Majesty has sent to fetch me waits even now at Southampton.""You speak of your work," she remarked, "as though you had been collecting material for a book."He smiled.
"I have been busy collecting information in many ways," he said,--"trying to live your life and feel as you feel, trying to understand those things in your country, and in other countries too, which seem at first so strange to us who come from the other side of the East.""And the end of it all?" she asked.
His eyes gleamed for a moment with a light which she did not understand. His smile was tolerant, even genial, but his face remained like the face of a sphinx.
"It is for the good of Japan I came," he said, "for her good that I have stayed here so long. At the same time it has been very pleasant. I have met with great kindness."She leaned a little forward so as to look into his face. The impassivity of his features was like a wall before her.
"After all," she said, "I suppose it is a period of probation.
You are like a schoolboy already who is looking forward to his holidays. You will be very happy when you return.""I shall be very happy indeed," he admitted simply. "Why not?" Iam a true son of Japan, and, for every true son of his country, absence from her is as hard a thing to be borne as absence from one's own family."Somerfield, who was sitting on her other side, insisted at last upon diverting her attention.
"Penelope," he declared, lowering his voice a little, "it isn't fair. You never have a word to say to me when the Prince is here."She smiled.
"You must remember that he is going away very soon, Charlie," she reminded him.
"Good job, too!" Somerfield muttered, sotto voce.
"And then," Penelope continued, with the air of not having heard her companion's last remark, "he possesses also a very great attraction. He is absolutely unlike any other human being I ever met or heard of."Somerfield glanced across at his rival with lowering brows.
