CHAPTER XIII. EAST AND WEST
After the supper there were obligations which the Prince, whose sense ofetiquette was always strong, could not avoid. He took Penelope back toher 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 rareappearances 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-fashioned type, openedher 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 anythingelse."
"It would be a terrible complication," the Duchess sighed, "especiallyconsidering our own alliance with Japan. I don't think we need considerit seriously, however. Over in America you people have too much commonsense."
"The Government have, very likely," Miss Morse admitted, "but it isn'talways the Government who decide things or who even rule the country.We have an omnipotent Press, you know. All that's wanted is a weakPresident, and Heaven knows where we should be!"
"Of course," the Duchess remarked, "Prince Maiyo is half an Englishman.His mother was a Stretton-Wynne. One of the first intermarriages, Ishould think. Lord Stretton-Wynne was Ambassador to Japan."
"I think," said Penelope, "that if you could look into Prince Maiyo'sheart you would not find him half an Englishman. I think that he is morethan seven-eighths a Japanese."
"I have heard it whispered," the Duchess remarked, leaning forward,"that he is over here on an exceedingly serious mission. One thing isquite certain. No one from his country, or from any other country, forthat matter, has ever been so entirely popular amongst us. He has themost delightful manners of any man I ever knew of any race."
Sir Charles came up, with gloomy face, to claim a dance. After it wasover, he led Penelope back to her aunt almost in silence.
"You are dancing again with the Prince?" he asked.
"Certainly," she answered. "Here he comes."
The Prince smiled pleasantly at the young man, who towered like a giantabove him, and noticed at once his lack of cordiality.
"I am selfish!" he exclaimed, pausing with Penelope's hand upon his coatsleeve. "I am taking you too much away from your friends, and spoilingyour pleasure, perhaps, because I do not dance. Is it not so? It is yourkindness to a stranger, and they do not all appreciate it."
"We will go into the winter garden and talk it over," she answered,smiling.
They found their old seats unoccupied. Once more they sat and listenedto the fall of the water.
"Prince," said Penelope, "there is one thing I have learned about youthis evening, and that is that you do not love questions. And yet thereis one other which I should like to ask you."
"If you please," the Prince murmured.
"You spoke, a little time ago," she continued, "of some great crisiswith which your country might soon come face to face. Might I ask youthis: were you thinking of war with the United States?"
He looked at her in silence for several moments.
"Dear Miss Penelope," he said,--"may I call you that? Forgive me if I amtoo forward, but I hear so many of our friends--"
"You may call me that," she interrupted softly.
"Let me remind you, then, of what we were saying a little time ago,"he went on. "You will not take offence? You will understand, I am sure.Those things that lie nearest to my heart concerning my country are thethings of which I cannot speak."
"Not even to me?" she pleaded. "I am so insignificant. Surely I do notcount?"
"Miss Penelope," he said, "you yourself are a daughter of that countryof which we have been speaking."
She was silent.
"You think, then," she asked, "that I put my country before everythingelse in the world?"
"I believe," he answered, "that you would. Your country is too young tobe wholly degenerate. It is true that you are a nation of fused races--astrange medley of people, but still you are a nation. I believe that intime of stress you would place your country before everything else."
"And therefore?" she murmured.
"And therefore," he continued with a delightful smile, "I shall notdiscuss my hopes or fears with you. Or if we do discuss them," he wenton, "let us weave them into a fairy tale. Let us say that you are indeedthe Daughter of All America and that I am the Son of All Japan. You knowwhat happens in fairyland when two great nations rise up to fight?"
"Tell me," she begged.
"Why, the Daughter of All America and the Son of All Japan stand handin hand before their people, and as they plight their troth, all bitterfeelings pass away, the shouts of anger cease, and there is no more talkof war."
She sighed, and leaned a little towards him. Her eyes were soft anddusky, her red lips a little parted.
"But I," she whispered, "am not the Daughter of All America."
"Nor am I," he answered with a sigh, "the Son of all Japan."
There was a breathless silence. The water splashed into the basin, themusic came throbbing in through the flower-hung doorways. It seemed toPenelope that she could almost hear her heart beat. The blood in herveins was dancing to the one perfect waltz. The moments passed. Shedrew a little breath and ventured to look at him. His face was still andwhite, as though, indeed, it had been carved out of marble, but the firein his eyes was a living thing.
"We have actually been talking nonsense," she said, "and I thought thatyou, Prince, were far too serious."
"We were talking fairy tales," he answered, "and they are not nonsense.Do not you ever read the history of your country as it was many hundredsof years ago, before this ugly thing they call civilization weakened thesinews of our race and besmirched the very face of duty? Do you not liketo read of the times when life was simpler and more natural, and therewas space for every man to live and grow and stretch out his handsto the skies,--every man and every woman? They call them, in yourliterature, the days of romance. They existed, too, in my country. Itis not nonsense to imagine for a little time that the ages between haverolled away and that those days are with us?"
"No," she answered, "it is not nonsense. But if they were?"
He raised her fingers to his lips and kissed them. The touch of hishand, the absolute delicacy of the salute itself, made it unlike anyother caress she had ever known or imagined.
"The world might have been happier for both of us," he whispered.
Somerfield, sullen and discontented, came and looked at them, movedaway, and then hesitatingly returned.
"Willmott is waiting for you," he said. "The last was my dance, and thisis his."
She rose at once and turned to the Prince.
"I think that we should go back," she said. "Will you take me to myaunt?"
"If it must be so," he answered. "Tell me, Miss Penelope," he added,"may I ask your aunt or the Duchess to bring you one day to my house tosee my treasures? I cannot say how long I shall remain in this country.I would like you so much to come before I break up my little home."
"Of course we will," she answered. "My aunt goes nowhere, but theDuchess will bring me, I am sure. Ask her when I am there, and we canagree about the day."
He leaned a little towards her.
"Tomorrow?" he whispered.
She nodded. There were three engagements for the next day of which shetook no heed.
"Tomorrow," she said. "Come and let us arrange it with the Duchess."
Prince Maiyo left Devenham House to find the stars paling in thesky, and the light of an April dawn breaking through the black cloudseastwards. He dismissed his electric brougham with a little wave ofthe hand, and turned to walk to his house in St. James's Square. As hewalked, he bared his head. After the long hours of artificially heatedrooms, there was something particularly soothing about the freshsweetness o
f the early spring morning. There was something, it seemedto him, which reminded him, however faintly, of the mornings in his ownland,--the perfume of the flowers from the window-boxes, perhaps, theabsence of that hideous roar of traffic, or the faint aromatic scentfrom the lime trees in the Park, heavy from recent rain. It was thequietest hour of the twenty-four,--the hour almost of dawn. The nightwayfarers had passed away, the great army of toilers as yet slumbered.One sad-eyed woman stumbled against him as he walked slowly upPiccadilly. He lifted his hat with an involuntary gesture, and her laughchanged into a sob. He turned round, and emptied his pockets of silverinto her hand, hurrying away quickly that his eyes might not dwell uponher face.
"A coward always," he murmured to himself, a little wearily, for he knewwhere his weakness lay,--an invincible repugnance to the ugly thingsof life. As he passed on, however, his spirits rose again. He caught abreath of lilac scent from a closed florist's shop. He looked up to theskies, over the housetops, faintly blue, growing clearer every moment.Almost he fancied that he looked again into the eyes of this strangegirl, recalled her unexpected yet delightful frankness, which to him,with his love of abstract truth, was, after all, so fascinating. Oh,there was much to be said for this Western world!--much to be said forthose whose part it was to live in it! Yet, never so much as duringthat brief night walk through the silent streets, did he realize howabsolutely unfitted he was to be even a temporary sojourner in this vastcity. What would they say of him if they knew,--of him, a breaker oftheir laws, a guest, and yet a sinner against all their conventions; aguest, and yet one whose hand it was which would strike them, someday or other, the great blow! What would she think of him? He wonderedwhether she would realize the truth, whether she would understand.Almost as he asked himself the question, he smiled. To him it seemed astrange proof of the danger in which a weaker man would stand ofpassing under the yoke of this hateful Western civilization. To dream ofher--yes! To see her face shining upon him from every beautiful place,to feel the delight of her presence with every delicious sensation,--thewarmth of the sunlight, the perfume of the blossoms he loved! There wasjoy in this, the joy of the artist and the lover. But to find her in hislife, a real person, a daughter of this new world, whose every instinctwould be at war with his--that way lay slavery! He brushed the verythought from him.
As he reached the door of his house in St. James' Square, it openedslowly before him. He had brought his own servants from his own country,and in their master's absence sleep was not for them. His butler spoketo him in his own language. The Prince nodded and passed on. On hisstudy table--a curious note of modernism where everything seemed tobelong to a bygone world--was a cablegram. He tore it open. It consistedof one word only. He let the thin paper fall fluttering from hisfingers. So the time was fixed!
Then Soto came gliding noiselessly into the room, fully dressed, withtireless eyes but wan face,--Soto, the prototype of his master, the mostperfect secretary and servant evolved through all the years.
"Master," he said, "there has been trouble here. An Englishman came withthis card."
The Prince took it, and read the name of Inspector Jacks.
"Well?" he murmured.
"The man asked questions," Soto continued. "We spoke English so badlythat he was puzzled. He went away, but he will come again."
The Prince smiled, and laid his hand almost caressingly upon the other'sshoulder.
"It is of no consequence, Soto," he said,--"no consequence whatever."