"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 home."
"Of course we will," she answered. "My aunt goes nowhere, but the
Duchess will bring me, I am sure. Ask her when I am there, and we
can agree about the day."
He leaned a little towards her.
"Tomorrow?" he whispered.
She nodded. There were three engagements for the next day of
which she took no heed.
"Tomorrow," she said. "Come and let us arrange it with the
Duchess."
Prince Maiyo left Devenham House to find the stars paling in the
sky, and the light of an April dawn breaking through the black
clouds eastwards. He dismissed his electric brougham with a
little wave of the hand, and turned to walk to his house in St.
James's Square. As he walked, he bared his head. After the long
hours of artificially heated rooms, there was something
particularly soothing about the fresh sweetness of the early
spring morning. There was something, it seemed to him, which
reminded him, however faintly, of the mornings in his own
land,--the perfume of the flowers from the window-boxes, perhaps,
the absence of that hideous roar of traffic, or the faint
aromatic scent from the lime trees in the Park, heavy from recent
rain.
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