The grasp only tightened.
“Back to your rooms!” came a whisper through the darkness.
The doctor returned. When he staggered into his sitting room, he turned up the electric light. There were red marks upon his throat and perspiration upon his forehead. He opened the door once more and looked out upon the landing, striking a match and holding it over his head. There was no one in sight, yet all the time he had the uncomfortable feeling that he was being watched. For the first time in his life he wondered whether a thousand guineas was, after all, such a magnificent fee!
Almost at the same time the Prince sat back in the shadows of the Duchess of Devenham’s box at the Opera and talked quietly to Lady Grace.
“But tell me, Prince,” she begged, “I know that you are glad to go home, but won’t you really miss this a little,—the music, the life, all these things that make up existence here? Your own country is wonderful, I know, but it has not progressed so far, has it?”
He shook his head.
“I think,” he said, “that the portion of our education which we have most grievously neglected is the development of our recreations. But then you must remember that we are to a certain extent without that craving for amusement which makes these things necessary for you others. We are perhaps too serious in my country, Lady Grace. We lack altogether that delightful air of irresponsibility with which you Londoners seem to make your effortless way through life.”
She was a little perplexed.
“I don’t believe,” she said, “that in your heart you approve of us at all.”
“Do not say that, Lady Grace,” he begged. “It is simply that I have been brought up in so different a school. This sort of thing is very wonderful, and I shall surely miss it. Yet nowadays the world is being linked together in marvellous fashion. Tokio and London are closer today than ever they have been in the world’s history.”