am not going to say a
word against him. If he were an American, we should be proud of him. If
he belonged to any other country, we should accept him at once for what
he appears to be. Unfortunately, however, he belongs to a country
which we have some reason to mistrust. He belongs to a country in whose
national character we have not absolute confidence. For that reason, my
dear Penelope, we mistrust Prince Maiyo."

"I do not know him so well as you seem to imagine," Penelope said
slowly. "We are not even friends, in the ordinary acceptation of the
word. I am, to some extent, prejudiced against him. Yet I do not believe
that he is capable of a dishonorable action."

"Nor do I," the Ambassador declared smoothly. "Yet in every country,
almost in every man, the exact standard of dishonor varies. A man will
lie for a woman's sake, and even in the law courts, certainly at
his clubs and amongst his friends, it will be accounted to his
righteousness. A patriot will lie and intrigue for his country's sake.
Now I believe that to Prince Maiyo Japan stands far above the whole
world of womankind. I believe that for her sake he would go to very
great lengths indeed."

"Go on, please," Penelope murmured.

"The Prince is over here on some sort of an errand which it isn't our
business to understand," Mr. Harvey said. "I have heard it rumored
that it is a special mission entirely concerned with the renewal of the
treaty between England and Japan. However that may be, I have sat here,
and I have thought, and I have come to this conclusion, ridiculous
though it may seem to you at first. I believe that somewhere behind the
hand which killed and robbed Hamilton Fynes and poor Dicky stood the
benevolent shadow of our friend Prince Maiyo."

"You have no proof?" she asked breathlessly.

"No proof at all," the Ambassador admitted. "I am scarcely in a position
to search for any. The conclusion I have come to has been simply arrived
at through putting a few facts together and considering them in the
light of certain events. In the first place, we cannot doubt that the
secret of those despatches reached at once the very people whom we
should have preferred to remain in ignorance of them. Haven't I told
you of the sudden cessation of the war alarm in Japan, when once she
was assured, by means which she could not mistrust, that it was not the
intention of the American nation to make war upon her? The subtlety of
those murders, and the knowled