The Prince on his return from the library intercepted Penelope on her way across the hall.
"Forgive me," he said, "but I could not help overhearing some sentences of your conversation with Sir Charles Somerfield as we sat at dinner. You are going to talk with him now, is it not so?""As soon as he comes out from the dining room."He saw the hardening of her lips, the flash in her eyes at the mention of Somerfield's name.
"Yes!" she continued, "Sir Charles and I are going to have a little understanding.""Are you sure," he asked softly, "that it will not be a misunderstanding?"She looked into his face.
"What does it matter to you?" she asked. "What do you care?""Come into the conservatory for a few minutes," he begged. You know that I take no wine and I prefer not to return into the dining room. I would like so much instead to talk to you before you see Sir Charles."She hesitated. He stood by her side patiently waiting.
"Remember," he said, "that I am a somewhat privileged person just now. My days here are numbered, you see."She turned toward the conservatories.
"Very well," she said, "I must be like every one else, I suppose, and spoil you. How dare you come and make us all so fond of you that we look upon your departure almost as a tragedy!"He smiled.
"Indeed," he declared, "there is a note of tragedy even in these simplest accidents of life. I have been very happy amongst you all, Miss Penelope. You have been so much kinder to me than Ihave deserved. You have thrown a bridge across the gulf which separates us people of alien tongues and alien manners. Life has been a pleasant thing for me here.""Why do you go so soon?" she whispered.
"Miss Penelope," he answered, "to those others who ask me that question, I shall say that my mission is over, that my report has been sent to my Emperor, and that there is nothing left for me to do but to follow it home. I could add, and it would be true, that there is very much work for me still to accomplish in my own country. To you alone I am going to say something else."She was no longer pale. Her eyes were filled with an exceedingly soft light. She leaned towards him, and her face shone as the face of a woman who prays that she may hear the one thing in life a woman craves to hear from the lips she loves best.
"Go on," she murmured.
"I want to ask you, Miss Penelope," he continued, "whether you remember the day when you paid a visit to my house?""Very well," she answered.
"I was showing you a casket," he went on.
She gripped his arm.
"Don't!" she begged. "Don't, I can't bear any more of that. You don't know how horrible it seems to me! You don't know--what fears I have had!"He looked away from her.
"I have sometimes wondered," he said, "what your thoughts were at that moment, what you have thought of me since."She shivered a little, but did not answer him.
"Very soon," he reminded her, "I shall have passed out of your life."He heard the sudden, half-stifled exclamation. He felt rather than saw the eyes which pleaded with him, and he hastened on.
"You understand what is meant by the inevitable," he continued.
"Whatever has happened in the matters with which I have been concerned has been inevitable. I have had no choice--sometimes no choice in such events is possible. Do not think," he went on, "that I tell you this to beg for your sympathy. I would not have a thing other than as it is. But when we have said goodbye, Iwant you to believe the best of me, to think as kindly as you can of the things which you may not be able to comprehend. Remember that we are not so emotional a nation as that to which you belong. Our affections are but seldom touched. We live without feeling for many days, sometimes for longer, even, than many days. It has not been so altogether with me. I have felt more than I dare, at this moment, to speak of.""Yet you go," she murmured.
