The Duchess looked up from her writing table and nodded to her husband, who had just entered.
"Good morning, Ambrose!" she said. "Do you want to talk to me?""If you can spare me five minutes," the Duke suggested. "I don't think that I need keep you longer."The Duchess handed her notebook to her secretary, who hastened from the room. The Duke seated himself in her vacant chair.
"About our little party down in Hampshire next week," he began.
"I am waiting to hear from you before I send out any invitations," the Duchess answered.
"Quite so," the Duke assented. "To tell you the truth, I don't want anything in the nature of a house party. What I should really like would be to get Maiyo there almost to ourselves."His wife looked at him in some surprise.
"You seem particularly anxious to make things pleasant for this young man," she remarked. "If he were the son of the Emperor himself, no one could do more for him than you people have been doing these last few weeks."The Duke of Devenham, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, whose wife entertained for his party, and whose immense income, derived mostly from her American relations, was always at its disposal, was a person almost as important in the councils of his country as the Prime Minister himself. It sometimes occurred to him that the person who most signally failed to realize this fact was the lady who did him the honor to preside over his household.
"My dear Margaret," he said, "you can take my word for it that we know what we are about. It is very important indeed that we should keep on friendly terms with this young man,--I don't mean as a personal matter. It's a matter of politics--perhaps of something greater, even, than that."The Duchess liked to understand everything, and her husband's reticence annoyed her.
"But we have the Japanese Ambassador always with us," she remarked. "A most delightful person I call the Baron Hesho, and Iam sure he loves us all."
"That is not exactly the point, my dear," the Duke explained.
"Prince Maiyo is over here on a special mission. We ourselves have only been able to surmise its object with the aid of our secret service in Tokio. You can rest assured of one thing, however. It is of vast importance to the interests of this country that we secure his goodwill."The Duchess smiled good humoredly.
"Well, my dear Ambrose," she said, "I don't know what more we can do than feed him properly and give him pleasant people to talk to. He doesn't go in for sports, does he? All I can promise is that we will do our best to be agreeable to him.""I am sure of it, my dear," the Duke said. "You haven't committed yourself to asking any one, by the bye?""Not a soul," his wife answered, "except Sir Charles. I had to ask him, of course, for Penelope.""Naturally," the Duke assented. "I am glad Penelope will be there. I only wish that she were English instead of American, and that Maiyo would take a serious fancy to her.""Perhaps," the Duchess said dryly, "you would like him to take a fancy to Grace?""I shouldn't mind in the least," her husband declared. "I never met a young man whom I respected and admired more.""Nor I, for that matter," the Duchess agreed. "And yet, somehow or other--""Somehow or other?" the Duke repeated courteously.
"Well, I never altogether trust these paragons," his wife said.
"In all the ordinary affairs of life the Prince seems to reach an almost perfect standard. I sometimes wonder whether he would be as trustworthy in the big things. Nothing else you want to talk about, Ambrose?""Nothing at all," the Duke said, rising to his feet. "I only wanted to make it plain that we don't require a house party next week.""I shan't ask a soul," the Duchess answered. "Do you mind ringing the bell as you pass? I'll have Miss Smith back again and send these letters off.""Good!" the Duke declared. "I'm going down to the House, but Idon't suppose there'll be anything doing. By the bye, we shall have to be a little feudal next week. Japan is a country of many ceremonies, and, after all, Maiyo is one of the Royal Family. Ihave written Perkins, to stir him up a little."The Duke drove down to the House, but called first in Downing Street. He found the Prime Minister anxious to see him.
"You've arranged about Maiyo coming down to you next week?" he asked.
"That's all right," the Duke answered. "He is coming, for certain. One good thing about that young man--he never breaks an engagement."The Prime Minister consulted a calendar which lay open before him.
"Do you mind," he asked, "if I come, too, and Bransome?""Why, of course not," the Duke replied. "We shall be delighted.
We have seventy bedrooms, and only half a dozen or so of us. But tell me--is this young man as important as all that?""We shall have to have a serious talk," the Prime Minister said, "in a few days' time. I don't think that even you grasp the exact position of affairs as they stand today. Just now I am bothered to death about other things. Heseltine has just been in from the Home Office. He is simply inundated with correspondence from America about those two murders."The Duke nodded.
"It's an odd thing," he remarked, "that they should both have been Americans.""Heseltine thinks there's something behind this correspondence,"the Prime Minister said slowly. "Washington was very secretive about the man Fynes' identity. I found that out from Scotland Yard. Do you know, I'm half inclined to think, although I can't get a word out of Harvey, that this man Fynes--"The Prime Minister hesitated.
"Well?" the Duke asked a little impatiently.
