“Certainly,” the Duke answered, “we were sitting here awaiting your arrival. Will you take this easy chair? The cigarettes are at your elbow.”
The Prince declined the easy chair and leaned for a moment against the table.
“Perhaps later,” he said. “Just now I feel that you have something to say to me. Is it not so? I talk better when I am standing.”
It was the Prime Minister who made the first plunge. He spoke without circumlocution, and his tone was graver than usual.
“Prince,” he said, “this is perhaps the last time that we shall all meet together in this way. You go from us direct to the seat of your Government. So far there has been very little plain speaking between us. It would perhaps be more in accord with etiquette if we let you go without a word, and waited for a formal interchange of communications between your Ambassador and ourselves. But we have a feeling, Sir Edward and I, that we should like to talk to you directly. Before we go any further, however, let me ask you this question. Have you any objection, Prince, to discussing a certain matter here with us?”
The Prince for several moments made no reply. He was still standing facing the fireplace, leaning slightly against the table behind him. On his right was the Duke, seated in a library chair. On his left the Prime Minister and Sir Edward Bransome. The Prince seemed somehow to have become the central figure of the little group.
“Perhaps,” he said, “if you had asked me that question a month ago, Mr. Haviland, I might have replied to you differently. Circumstances, however, since then have changed. My departure will take place so soon, and the kindness I have met here from all of you has been so overwhelming, that if you will let me I should like to speak of certain things concerning which no written communication could ever pass between our two countries.”
“I can assure you, my dear Prince, that we shall very much appreciate your doing so,” Mr. Haviland declared.
“I think,” the Prince continued, “that the greatest and the most subtle of all policies is the policy of perfect truthfulness. Listen to me, then. The thing which you have in your mind concerning me is true. Two years I have spent in this country and in other countries of Europe. These two years have not been spent in purposeless travel. On the contrary, I have carried with me always a definite and very fixed purpose.”
The Prime Minister and Bransome exchanged rapid glances.