“Yes,” he answered, “I heard so.”
The curtain went up. The faint murmur of the violins was suddenly caught up and absorbed in the thunderous music of a march. Lady Grace moved nearer to the front. Prince Maiyo remained where he was among the shadows. The music was in his ears, but his eyes were half closed.
CHAPTER XXVIII. PATRIOTISM
The Duke’s chef had served an Emperor with honor—the billiard room at Devenham Castle was the most comfortable room upon earth. The three men who sat together upon a huge divan, the three men most powerful in directing the councils of their country, felt a gentle wave of optimism stealing through their quickened blood. Nevertheless this was a serious matter which occupied their thoughts.
“We are becoming,” the Prime Minister said, “much too modern. We are becoming over-civilized out of any similitude to a nation of men of blood and brawn.”
“You are quoting some impossible person,” Sir Edward Bransome declared.
“One is always quoting unconsciously,” the Prime Minister admitted with a sigh. “What I mean is that five hundred years ago we should have locked this young man up in a room hung with black crape, and with a pleasant array of unfortunately extinct instruments we should have succeeded, beyond a doubt, in extorting the truth from him.”
“And if the truth were not satisfactory?” the Duke asked, lighting a cigar.
“We should have endeavored to change his point of view,” the Prime Minister continued, “even if we had to change at the same time the outline of his particularly graceful figure. The age of thumbscrews and the rack was, after all, a very virile age. Just consider for a moment our positions—three of the greatest and most brilliant statesmen of our day—and we can do very little save wait for this young man to declare himself. We are the puppets with whom he plays. It rests with him whether our names are written upon the scroll of fame or whether our administration is dismissed in half a dozen contemptuous words by the coming historian. It rests with him whether our friend Bransome here shall be proclaimed the greatest Foreign Minister that ever breathed, and whether I myself have a statue erected to me in Westminster Yard, which shall be crowned with a laurel wreath by patriotic young ladies on the morning of my anniversary.”