“Penelope,” Somerfield said a little awkwardly, “I don’t want to presume, you know, nor to have you think that I am foolishly jealous, but you have changed towards me the last few weeks, haven’t you?”
“The last few weeks,” she answered, “have been enough to change me toward any one. All the same, I wasn’t conscious of anything particular so far as you are concerned.”
“I always thought,” he continued after a moment’s hesitation, “that there was so much prejudice in your country against—against all Asiatic races.”
She looked at him steadfastly for a minute.
“So there is,” she answered. “What of it?”
“Nothing, except that it is a prejudice which you do not seem to share,” he remarked.
“In a way I do share it,” she declared, “but there are exceptions, sometimes very wonderful exceptions.”
“Prince Maiyo, for instance,” he said bitterly. “Yet a fortnight ago I could have sworn that you hated him.”
“I think that I do hate him,” Penelope affirmed. “I try to. I want to. I honestly believe that he deserves my hatred. I have more reason for feeling this way than you know of, Sir Charles.”
“If he has dared—” Somerfield began.