"
Lady Grace sighed. She too was chalking her cue.
"I wonder," she said, "what it would be like to live in the
clouds."
CHAPTER XXXII. PRINCE MAIYO SPEAKS
The library at Devenham Castle was a large and sombre apartment,
with high oriel windows and bookcases reaching to the ceiling. It
had an unused and somewhat austere air. Tonight especially an
atmosphere of gloom seemed to pervade it. The Prince, when he
opened the door, found the three men who were awaiting him seated
at an oval table at the further end of the room.
"I do not intrude, I trust?" the Prince said. "I understood that
you wished me to come here."
"Certainly," the Duke answered, "we were sitting here awaiting
your arrival. Will you take this easy chair? The cigarettes are
at your elbow."
The Prince declined the easy chair and leaned for a moment
against the table.
"Perhaps later," he said. "Just now I feel that you have
something to say to me. Is it not so? I talk better when I am
standing."
It was the Prime Minister who made the first plunge. He spoke
without circumlocution, and his tone was graver than usual.
"Prince," he said, "this is perhaps the last time that we shall
all meet together in this way. You go from us direct to the seat
of your Government. So far there has been very little plain
speaking between us. It would perhaps be more in accord with
etiquette if we let you go without a word, and waited for a
formal interchange of communications between your Ambassador and
ourselves.
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