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.” “We were talking fairy tales,” he answered, “and they are not nonsense. Do not you ever read the history of your country as it was many hundreds of years ago, before this ugly thing they call civilization weakened the sinews of our race and besmirched the very face of duty? Do you not like to read of the times when life was simpler and more natural, and there was space for every man to live and grow and stretch out his hands to the skies,--every man and every woman? They call them, in your literature, the days of romance. They existed, too, in my country. It is not nonsense to imagine for a little time that the ages between have rolled away and that those days are with us?” “No,” she answered, “it is not nonsense. But if they were?” He raised her fingers to his lips and kissed them. The touch of his hand, the absolute delicacy of the salute itself, made it unlike any other caress she had ever known or imagined. “The world might have been happier for both of us,” he whispered. Somerfield, sullen and discontented, came and looked at them, moved away, and then hesitatingly returned. “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.”