“Not yet, Prince,” he said.

“Not yet,” the Prince echoed.  “Dear me, that is very unfortunate!”

Inspector Jacks watched the people who were passing, for a moment, with a fixed, unseeing gaze.

“I am afraid,” he said, “that we must seem to you very slow and very stupid.  Very likely we are.  And yet, yet in time we generally reach our goal.  Sometimes we go a long way round.  Sometimes we wait almost over long, but sooner or later we strike.”

The Prince nodded sympathetically.

“The best of fortune to you, Mr. Jacks!” he said.  “I wish you could have cleared these matters up before I left for home.  It is pure selfishness, of course, but I have always felt a great interest in your work.”

“If we do not clear them up before you leave the country, Prince,” the Inspector answered, “I fear that we shall never clear them up at all.”

The Prince passed on smiling.  A conversation with Inspector Jacks seemed always to inspire him.  It was a fine afternoon and Pall Mall was crowded.  In a few moments he came face to face with Somerfield, who greeted him a little gloomily.

“Sir Charles,” the Prince said, “I hope that I shall have the pleasure of meeting you at Devenham?”

“I am not sure,” Somerfield answered.  “I have been asked, but I promised some time ago to go up to Scotland.  I have a third share in a river there, and the season for salmon is getting on.”

“I am sorry,” the Prince declared.  “I have no doubt, however, but that Miss Morse will induce you to change your mind.  I should regret your absence the more,” he continued, “because this, I fear, is the last visit which I shall be paying in this country.”

Somerfield was genuinely interested.

“You are really going home?” he asked eagerly.

“Almost at once,” the Prince answered.

“Only for a time, I suppose?” Somerfield continued.

The Prince shook his head.

“On the contrary,” he said, “I imagine that this will be a long goodbye.  I think I can promise you that if ever I reach Japan I shall remain there.  My work in this hemisphere will be accomplished.”

Somerfield looked at him with the puzzled air of a man who is face to face with a problem which he cannot solve.

“You’ll forgive my putting it so plainly, Prince,” he remarked, “but do you mean to say that after having lived over here you could possibly settle down again in Japan?”

The Prince returned for a moment his companion’s perplexed gaze.  Then his lips parted, his eyes shone.  He laughed softly, gracefully, with genuine mirth.

“Sir Charles,” he said, “I shall not forget that question.  I think that of all the Englishmen whom I have met you are the most English of all.  When I think of your great country, as I often shall do, of her sons and her daughters, I will promise you that to me you shall always represent the typical man of your race and fortune.”