Penelope, who overheard, laughed softly and leaned across the
table.

"I fancy," she murmured, "that the person you are speaking of
would not look at it in quite the same light."

"Has any one seen the evening paper?" the Duchess asked. "It is
there any more news about that extraordinary murder?"

"Nothing fresh in the early editions," Sir Charles answered.

"I think," the Duchess declared, "that it is perfectly
scandalous. Our police system must be in a disgraceful state.
Tell me, Prince,--could anything like that happen in your
country?"

"Without doubt," the Prince answered, "life moves very much in
the East as with you here. Only with us," he added a little
thoughtfully, "there is a difference, a difference of which one
is reminded at a time like this, when one reads your newspapers
and hears the conversation of one's friends."

"Tell us what you mean?" Penelope asked quickly.

He looked at her as one might have looked at a child,--kindly,
even tolerantly. He was scarcely so tall as she was, and
Penelope's attitude towards him was marked all the time with a
certain frigidity. Yet he spoke to her with the quiet, courteous
confidence of the philosopher who unbends to talk to a child.