“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 away, 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.”