upon his coat
sleeve. "I am taking you too much away from your friends, and spoiling
your pleasure, perhaps, because I do not dance. Is it not so? It is your
kindness 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 listened
to the fall of the water.

"Prince," said Penelope, "there is one thing I have learned about you
this evening, and that is that you do not love questions. And yet there
is 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 crisis
with which your country might soon come face to face. Might I ask you
this: 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 am
too 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 the
things of which I cannot speak."

"Not even to me?" she pleaded. "I am so insignificant. Surely I do not
count?"

"Miss Penelope," he said, "you yourself are a daughter of that country
of which we have been speaking."

She was silent.

"You think, then," she asked, "that I put my country before everything
else in the world?"

"I believe," he answered, "that you would. Your country is too young to
be wholly degenerate. It is true that you are a nation of fused races--a
strange medley of people, but still you are a nation. I believe that in
time of stress you would place your country before everything else."

"And therefore?" she murmured.

"And therefore," he continued with a delightful smile, "I shall not
discuss my hopes or fears with you. Or if we do discuss them," he went
on, "let us weave them into a fairy tale. Let us say that you are indeed
the Daughter of All America and that I am the Son of All Japan. You know
what 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 hand
in hand before their people, and as they plight their troth, all bitter
feelings pass aw