The Great Prince Shan Part 18

"Why?" she asked.

He looked at her meditatively. Then he accepted her unspoken invitation and seated himself on the lounge by her side.

"We who come from the self-contained countries of the world," he explained, "and China is one of them, come always with the desire and longing for new experiences, new sensations. My own appet.i.te for these is insatiable."

"And am I a new sensation?" Maggie asked, glancing up at him innocently enough, but with a faint gleam of mockery in her eyes.

"You are," he answered placidly. "You reveal--or rather you suggest--the things of which in my country we know nothing."

"But I thought you were all so hyper-civilised over there," Maggie observed. "Please tell me at once what it is that I possess which your womenkind do not."

"If I answered all that your question implies," he said, "I should make use of speech too direct for the conventions of the world in which you live. I would simply remind you that whereas we men in China may claim, I think, to have reached the same standard of culture and civilisation as Europeans, we have left our womenkind far behind in that respect. The Chinese woman, even the n.o.ble lady, does not care for serious affairs.

The G.o.d of the Mountains, as they call him, made her a flower to pluck, a beautiful plaything for her chosen mate. She remains primitive. That is why, in time, man wearies of her, why the person of imagination looks sometimes westward, finds a new joy and a strange new fascination in a wholly different type of femininity."

"But you have many European women now living in China," Maggie reminded him,--"American women, too, and they are so much admired everywhere."

"The Chinese, especially we of the n.o.bility," Prince Shan replied, "are born with racial prejudices. An individual may forgive an affront, a nation never. The days of retaliation by force of arms may indeed have pa.s.sed, but the gentleman of China, even of these days, is not likely to take to his heart the woman of America."

"Dear me," Maggie murmured, "isn't it rather out of date to persevere in these ancient feuds?"

"Feeling of all sorts is out of date," he admitted patiently, "yet there are some things which endure. I should be honoured by your friendship, Lady Maggie."

"This is very sudden," she laughed. "I am very flattered--but what does it mean?"

"Permission to call upon you--and your aunt," he added, glancing around the little circle.

"We shall be delighted," Maggie replied, "but you won't like my aunt.

She is a little deaf, and she has no sense of humour. She has come to live with us because Lord Dorminster and I are not really related, although we call ourselves cousins, and I should hate to leave Belgrave Square. You shall take me out to tea to-morrow afternoon instead, if you like."

A smouldering fire burned for a moment in his eyes.

"That will make me very happy," he said. "I shall attend you at four o'clock."

Thenceforward, conversation became general. Prince Shan, with the air of one who has achieved his immediate object, left his place by Maggie's side and talked with grave courtesy to her aunt. Presently the little party broke up, bound, it seemed, for the same theatre. Nigel had become a little serious.

"Well, you've made a good start, Maggie," he remarked, leaning forward in his place in the limousine.

"Have I?" Maggie answered thoughtfully. "I wonder!"

"I wish we could get at him in some different fashion," her companion observed uneasily.

"My dear man, I'm hardened to these enterprises," Maggie a.s.sured him. "I even let the President of the German Republic hold my hand once when his wife wasn't looking. Nothing came of it," she added, with a little sigh.

"These Germans are terribly sentimental when it doesn't cost them anything. They've no idea of a fair exchange."

"By a 'fair exchange' you mean," her aunt suggested, a little censoriously, "that you expected him to barter his country's secrets for a touch of your fingers?"

"Or my lips, perhaps," Maggie added, with a little grimace. "Please don't look so serious, Aunt. I'm not really in love with Prince Shan, you know, and to-night I rather feel like marrying Nigel, if I can get him back again. I like his waistcoat b.u.t.tons, and the way he has tied his tie."

"Too late, my dear," Nigel warned her. "I give you formal notice. I have transferred my affections."

"That decides me," Maggie declared firmly. "I shall collect you back again. I hate to lose an admirer."

"The nonsense you young people talk!" Mrs. Bollington Smith observed, as they reached the theatre.

Chalmers joined them soon after they had reached their box. He sank into the empty place by Maggie's side which Nigel had just vacated and leaned forward confidentially.

"So you've started the campaign," he whispered.

"How do you know?" she enquired.

"I was at the Ritz to-night," he told her, "at the far end of the room with my Chief and two other men. We were behind you in the lounge afterwards."

"I was so engrossed," Maggie murmured.

Chalmers paused for a moment to watch the performance. When he spoke again, his voice, was, for him, unusually serious.

"Young lady," he said, "I told you on our first meeting my idea of diplomacy. Truth! No beating about the bush--just the plain, unvarnished truth! I have conceived an affection for you."

"Goodness gracious!" Maggie exclaimed softly. "Are you going to propose?"

"Nothing," he a.s.sured her, "is farther from my thoughts. Lest I should be misunderstood, let me subst.i.tute the term 'affectionate interest' for 'affection.' I have felt uneasy ever since I saw Prince Shan watching you across the restaurant to-night."

"Did he really watch me?" Maggie asked complacently.

"He not only watched you," Chalmers a.s.sured her, "but he thought about you--and very little else."

"Congratulate me, then," she replied. "I am on the way to success."

Chalmers frowned.

"I'm not quite so sure," he said. "You'll think I'm an illogical sort of person, but I've changed my mind about your role in this little affair."

"Why?"

"Because I am afraid of Prince Shan," he answered deliberately.

She looked at him from behind her fan. Her eyes sparkled with interest.

If there were any other feeling underneath, she showed no trace of it.

"What a queer word for you to use!"

He nodded.

"I know it. I would back you, Lady Maggie, to hold your own against any male creature breathing, of your own order and your own race, but Prince Shan plays the game differently. He possesses every gift which women and men both admire, but he hasn't our standards. Life for him means power.

A wish for him entails its fulfilment."

"You are afraid," Maggie suggested, still with the laughter in her eyes, "that he will trifle with my affections?"

"Something like that," he admitted bluntly. "Prince Shan will be here for a week--perhaps a fortnight. When he goes, he goes a very long distance away."