ht time," she
insisted. "Be patient for a little longer, do. Just now I feel that I
need a friend more than I have ever needed one before. Don't let me lose
the one I value most. In a few weeks' time you shall say whatever you
like, and, at any rate, I will listen to you. Will you be content with
that?"

"Yes!" he answered.

She laid her fingers upon his arm.

"I am dancing this with Captain Wilmot," she said. "Will you come and
bring me back here afterwards, unless you are engaged?"

The Prince found her alone in the winter garden, for Somerfield, when he
had seen him coming, had stolen away. He came towards her quickly,
with the smooth yet impetuous step which singled him out at once as
un-English. He had the whole room to cross to come to her, and she
watched him all the way. The corners of his lips were already curved in
a slight smile. His eyes were bright, as one who looks upon something
which he greatly desires. Slender though his figure was, his frame was
splendidly knit, and he carried himself as one of the aristocrats of
the world. As he approached, she scanned his face curiously. She became
critical, anxiously but ineffectively. There was not a feature in his
face with which a physiognomist could have found fault.

"Dear young lady," he said, bowing low, "I come to you very humbly, for
I am afraid that I am a deceiver. I shall rob you of your pleasure,
I fear. I have put my name down for four dances, and, alas! I do not
dance."

She made room for him by her side.

"And I," she said, "am weary of dancing. One does nothing else, night
after night. We will talk."

"Talk or be silent," he answered softly. "Myself I believe that you
are in need of silence. To be silent together is a proof of great
friendship, is it not?"

She nodded.

"It seems to me that I have been through so much the last fortnight."
she said.

"You have suffered where you should not have suffered," he assented
gravely. "I do not like your laws at all. At what they called the
inquest your presence was surely not necessary! You were a woman and had
no place there. You had," he added calmly, "so little to tell."

"Nothing," she murmured.

"Life to me just now," he continued, "is so much a matter of comparison.
It is for that, indeed, that I am here. You see, I have lived nearly all
my life in my own country and only a very short time in Europe. Then my
mother was an English lady, and my father a Japanese nobleman. Always
I seem