He was very silent. It seemed to her that there was something strange about the immovability of his features. She looked at him wonderingly. Then it suddenly flashed upon her that this was his way of showing emotion. Her lips parted. The color seemed drawn from her cheeks. The majordomo of the Duchess stood before them with a bow. “Her Grace desires me to show your Highness to your seats,” he announced. Prince Maiyo turned to his companion. “Will you allow me to precede you through the crush?” he said. “We are to go this way.” CHAPTER XIII. EAST AND WEST After the supper there were obligations which the Prince, whose sense of etiquette was always strong, could not avoid. He took Penelope back to her aunt, reminding her that the next dance but one belonged to him. Miss Morse, who was an invalid and was making one of her very rare appearances in Society, watched him curiously as he disappeared. “I wonder what they’d think of your new admirer in New York, Penelope,” she remarked. “I imagine,” Penelope answered, “that they would envy me very much.” Miss Morse, who was a New Englander of the old-fashioned type, opened her lips, but something in her niece’s face restrained her. “Well, at any rate,” she said, “I hope we don’t go to war with them. The Admiral wrote me, a few weeks ago, that he saw no hope for anything else.” “It would be a terrible complication,” the Duchess sighed, “especially considering our own alliance with Japan. I don’t think we need consider it seriously, however. Over in America you people have too much common sense.” “The Government have, very likely,” Miss Morse admitted, “but it isn’t always the Government who decide things or who even rule the country. We have an omnipotent Press, you know. All that’s wanted is a weak President, and Heaven knows where we should be!” “Of course,” the Duchess remarked, “Prince Maiyo is half an Englishman. His mother was a Stretton-Wynne. One of the first intermarriages, I should think. Lord Stretton-Wynne was Ambassador to Japan.” “I think,” said Penelope, “that if you could look into Prince Maiyo’s heart you would not find him half an Englishman. I think that he is more than seven-eighths a Japanese.” “I have heard it whispered,” the Duchess remarked, leaning forward, “that he is over here on an exceedingly serious mission. One thing is quite certain. No one from his country, or from any other country, for that matter, has ever been so entirely popular amongst us. He has the most delightful manners of any man I ever knew of any race.” Sir Charles came up, with gloomy face, to claim a dance. After it was over, he led Penelope back to her aunt almost in silence. “You are dancing again with the Prince?” he asked. “Certainly,” she answered. “Here he comes.” The Prince smiled pleasantly at the young man, who towered like a giant above him, and noticed at once his lack of cordiality.