ay, the shouts of anger cease, and there is no more talk
of war."

She sighed, and leaned a little towards him. Her eyes were soft and
dusky, 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, the
music came throbbing in through the flower-hung doorways. It seemed to
Penelope that she could almost hear her heart beat. The blood in her
veins was dancing to the one perfect waltz. The moments passed. She
drew a little breath and ventured to look at him. His face was still and
white, as though, indeed, it had been carved out of marble, but the fire
in his eyes was a living thing.

"We have actually been talking nonsense," she said, "and I thought that
you, 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 hundreds
of years ago, before this ugly thing they call civilization weakened the
sinews of our race and besmirched the very face of duty? Do you not like
to read of the times when life was simpler and more natural, and there
was space for every man to live and grow and stretch out his hands
to the skies,--every man and every woman? They call them, in your
literature, the days of romance. They existed, too, in my country. It
is not nonsense to imagine for a little time that the ages between have
rolled 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 his
hand, the absolute delicacy of the salute itself, made it unlike any
other 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, moved
away, and then hesitatingly returned.

"Willmott is waiting for you," he said. "The last was my dance, and this
is his."

She rose at once and turned to the Prince.

"I think that we should go back," she said. "Will you take me to my
aunt?"

"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 to
see 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 ho