PART II (continued 3)

She hardly knew when she began to feel the subtle difference between the American’s homage and that of the great Hungarian magnates. For some time her words with him were desultory, so much of her attention was demanded elsewhere; but as the conversation at the long table coupled, and the beautiful Roumanian, wife of Count Ábris Teleky, who sat on the other side of Prince Illehazy, absorbed more and more of his attention, she found her own consecutively claimed by Fessenden Abbott. She had been content with the apparent impression her coquetry and graciousness had made on the American, reflecting with arrogance that there is nothing so dense as the vanity of man. It was not long before she was made aware that Fessenden, if admiring, was not prostrate; that sensible as he might be to her flattery, his head was still cool. But it was not until they talked without interruption that she experienced for the first time in her life the sensation of being a mere woman talking to a mere man, and realized in a flash that she had spent the early part of the evening in a fool’s paradise. Given to self-analysis, she wondered at its fascination, for Fessenden’s attitude after the Chardash had been intensely irritating. But every nerve in her had been on edge during that extraordinary dance; however he had comported himself at its finish would doubtless have served as a pretext for opening a safety-valve among the sensations that were oppressing her. To-night she was filled with good-will to all the world; she had already sighed for democracy, and while she sighed again at the death of an illusion, it was doubtless consistent to accept pleasurably a momentary sensation of true equality. That this famous American, who was beginning to appall the world with his resource, was dazzled by her beauty and captivated by her charm, was apparent to whomsoever chose to observe, but it was the surrender of man to his goddess; his eyes were level, not upcast in the homage of courtier to princess. His masculine vanity was flattered, no doubt, but by the woman, not by the daughter of the Emperor of Austria.

For a time the conversation was impersonal enough. “I hope you will come to my ball,” the Archduchess had said, and then added with a laugh—“That ball! How often its plans have been changed! The Princess Sarolta thought that it should be given to the aristocracy alone, but I have finally decided that all the members of Parliament shall be invited, and all who have distinguished themselves in art and letters. I am not very patient. I do not like doing things by degrees. You saw Alexandra this afternoon? I told her to take you into our confidence.”

“It is a very great scheme, and I am entirely at your disposal. But what do you intend, in this instance, to do about the wives of your untitled members? And the wives of your other distinguished guests who do not come to court as a matter of course?”

“Oh, the women cannot come. They do not expect it.”

“They would be valuable allies.”

“It is quite impossible. The women of the aristocracy would rebel—would stay away from court, no doubt.”

“I wonder. Court life in Hungary is very rare. Surely you are powerful enough to set your own fashions.”

But Ranata looked determined and unmoved. “I should lose much and gain nothing. And, besides, I do not wish it. An empire is an empire, not a republic. If I opened the gates, where would be the end? I should be shaking hands with eight thousand people of an evening, like your poor President.”

“You would find that rather interesting. Your wild and picturesque peasants—Hungarians, Roumanians, Wallachians, Servians, Croats, Orthodox Jews, and what not—would come pouring in from their fastnesses.”

“I shall go to them in their villages. To hold a little court for them, as it were, will be delightful. But here—it would be only to cheapen myself.”

“It would be a great victory gained if you could bring the members of the Extreme Left to court. The Emperor cannot; but if you invited their wives, no doubt you would conquer their prejudices—the wives would see to that.”

“Do you think I have given no thought to the Kossuths? I have my plan of campaign. ‘Just you wait,’ as Alex would say.” She lifted her eyes and looked directly at him; there was not even defiance in their rays. “It has also been decided that although all the magnates and their families will come in the national costume, only a hundred of the younger will dance the Chardash. The older—the men at least—seem to have lost nothing of their fire, but I fear apoplexy.”

“It certainly requires the wind of youth. I suppose I shall not be permitted to dance it,” he added discontentedly. “Whom shall you dance it with?”

She hesitated a perceptible half moment; then she answered, “I shall not dance it at all.”

He turned to her with a flash in his eyes, and her own dropped. “Allow me to contribute an idea. Why not have it danced by peasants? Many of the women have beautiful costumes, although they do not always wear them; enough could be found, at all events. Bring them here—house them in the servants’ quarters for two or three nights. Do not offer to pay anything but their expenses. Ask them to come as a favor. Give them a feast and dance of their own afterwards. All the peasantry of Hungary will be delighted. Let your other guests dance the Chardash in their own way afterwards. You would then please everybody. I suppose no one has dared to tell you, but the women are by no means enthusiastic at the prospect of having the breath whirled out of them; and many are disappointed at not being able to wear their latest costumes from Paris and Vienna.”

“Ah! That is the truth, I suppose.” She laughed. “The evolution of a ball! One would think this was the first that ever had been heard of. But I like your idea. Yes—it shall be. And only those who wish shall dance the Chardash.”

“Then,” said Fessenden quickly, “you can dance with me afterwards. I have to wear some sort of a costume, anyhow.”

She caught her breath, and again her anger rose.

“It is customary,” she began haughtily, then paused, at a loss how to word her rebuke. This was not only an American, but a sovereign in his way, and her friend’s brother. She stole a glance at him. He had thrown back his head, and was staring down at her with a glitter in his eyes that made them seem peculiarly contracted. He looked more angry than she felt. She lifted her head and said defiantly, “I shall not dance at all.”

“That is a great pity,” said Fessenden coldly, “for I never knew any one to enjoy dancing more.” Then, as her face flushed and her own eyes glittered, he added deliberately: “I have no intention of ignoring an experience which I have lain awake more than one night to remember. There is no reason why the subject should be taboo, and it makes an absurd and annoying complication. Do you expect me to be eternally on my guard lest I make a reference to it?”

For a moment the Archduchess did not answer. Her next words must decide the status of their future acquaintance, possibly would determine whether they ever met again or not. There was no mistaking the gauntlet he had thrown down: she was to take him on his own terms or not at all. Should she? Should she? Her anger had ebbed in an unaccountable manner. There was something very alluring in the prospect not only of a new variety of homage, but of adventuring farther on the path of liberty. Many changes had lifted their heads within her since her break for comparative independence and her rapid victory. She was beginning to perceive how fatally easy it is for women and nations to cross the border between liberty and license. Four days ago she had made an appalling addition to the limited sum of her experiences: she had known for a few moments the intoxication of abandonment. The retrospect had filled her with an alternate fury and delight. Woman-like she had vented her wrath on the man; and he had commanded her waking thoughts to the exclusion of the Austrian dynasty. Then, with the elaborate subtlety of the feminine mind, she had persuaded herself that her duty to her country demanded that she win the American from the man who menaced the future integrity of the Austrian Empire; and, buoyed up by the virtue of her cause, she had drawn him into the circle of her influence, having first analyzed him into the abstract condition of a curiosity. During the last half-hour she had quite forgotten that virtue alone had summoned Fessenden Abbott to court; but as she hesitated, fascinated, but doubting the policy of letting him eat the fruits of victory, the devil, which sits on his tail in a corner of every woman’s brain, plucked this virtue from its hook and flung it into the light.

She raised her brilliant powerful eyes to his and said sweetly: “You have placed me in a position from which there are only two outlets. I acknowledge myself defeated. What is it you would like to say about our Chardash? I am quite ready to discuss it threadbare.”

He laughed, but without annoyance, for she had uttered the words “our Chardash” in a tone that gave him a sharp sensation of delight. “The laurels are to you,” he said with commendable sobriety. “It is my turn to acknowledge defeat. I shall never mention the subject again except at your command.”

She had accomplished her purpose, and should have been satisfied. But she was filled with a sudden desire to hear all that he had left unsaid. What had he wanted to tell her? How had he felt for her that day? What did the memory mean to him? She cast about in her mind for the words that would express a delicate and elusive query, to lead him on, while not committing herself. But an interview with a Königsegg was a simple matter beside playing with fire when the fire was actually between one’s fingers; the hereditary game of coquetry was no guide. Nonplussed, but unwilling to leave the subject, she bit her lip and drew a long breath.

“What are you sighing about?” asked Fessenden.

“I am a woman and inconsistent.”

“I know less about women than you do, so I can’t help you out—at all events unless you tell me what is the matter with you.”

“Alexandra is direct, but she has a great deal of subtlety!”

“I haven’t a particle of subtlety. I’ll give a direct answer to a direct question from anybody but a South American president or a Chinaman. What is it?”

“I don’t think I’ll tell you,” said Ranata hurriedly. “How I long to hear all your adventures at first hand! Even listening to Alexandra, I have held my breath. But we are going to have our coffee on the terrace.”

A few moments later, as the company was standing about the pillared gallery behind the vines, the Princess Sarolta took Alexandra’s arm and strolled with her beyond the others.

“Why are you angry?” asked the watchful Obersthofmeisterin.

“Ranata is trying to make a fool of my brother.”

“You are making a fool of Zrinyi. Your brother has doubtless been made a fool of before. I was afraid that Ranata was taking man—in the person of your brother—as seriously as she has taken all life heretofore.”

Alexandra was on the alert at once. “You are quite mistaken,” she said indifferently. “Ranata has a very particular reason for turning my brother’s head. I promised, in a moment of enthusiasm, to help her. I do not know that that would hold, but I am in a quandary. I want Ranata to succeed in all that she has undertaken, but I do not want my brother sacrificed.”

“At your age tender consideration for a man is a characteristic! It is one of the amusing reminiscences of age. When you have learned, my child, how much they can stand—enfin! I am relieved that it is this way, for although I hope to have Ranata under my supervision when she goes through the inevitable, yet I shrink from it—and there is little I do shrink from! She would suffer quite horribly, because she must be utterly without hope; even intrigue would be forbidden her—she has too much at stake. But no! as well now as any time. As well your brother as any man. He looks as if he would never affiché a woman, he is not hot of head, he knows the world—and lives on the other side of it!”

“You are all wrong, Sarolta. Ranata is playing a game.”

“The game is fire,” replied the Princess dryly.

XV

After that Fessenden took his tea—he detested tea—every day in the Hungarian house. Sometimes the entire court was present, all conforming to the English custom approved by their princess, except the Obersthofmeisterin, who consumed glass after glass of iced coffee, to the secret envy of the rest. Sometimes only the younger ladies-in-waiting were present besides the Archduchess and Alexandra; but even at dinner, to which he was frequently invited, Fessenden rarely had a word alone with Ranata. Twice he had ridden with the court to the summit of the Schwabenberg in the early morning, but he had been obliged to content himself with observing the fine effect of flaming hair among the sweeping branches of the acacia.

If Fessenden had not long since come to the conclusion that it was a waste of man’s valuable time to puzzle over the idiosyncrasies of any woman, he would have wondered at the sudden change in the Archduchess’s tactics. She had dropped coquetry as abruptly as she had assumed it, and now treated him with a sisterly frankness which, in some respects, was a curious imitation of Alexandra’s. The truth was that Ranata had taken warning from an angry glint in her friend’s eye, although the subject of Fessenden had been mutually avoided. Moreover, Ranata had informed herself that the American’s friendship would doubtless be as valuable to the House of Hapsburg as his love, and far easier for her inexperienced self to manage. He had thrilled her unaccountably in the Chardash, and startled and fascinated her later by his momentary conquest of her will; but she had finally taken alarm, and when he arose in her thought she wrote a letter to Count von Königsegg, or demanded the company of her lively ladies-in-waiting. When she was alone in bed she sternly reviewed the Hungarian programme, and forced herself to plan for the subjugation of the Party of Independence. On this question she had much correspondence with the minister; for she had received more than one veiled command to let politics ostensibly alone while exercising the purely feminine forces of attraction to bind all parties in a common loyalty to the throne. This was not a difficult task for a beautiful and intelligent princess within the circle of her influence; but if a powerful band of enthusiastic Radicals chose to keep themselves far beyond the outer edge of that circle, how was she, hedged by every restriction, to cast her nets about them? She did not regard Fessenden’s suggestion as feasible—not for the present at least. If all else failed, however, she finally decided, with a secret preference for following his advice, that she would summon the most influential women of the aristocracy in secret conclave, and, appealing to their patriotism, ask them to come forth temporarily from their haughty exclusiveness and meet the women of the dangerous element within the neutral shades of the palace. She had discussed this plan with her mentor, and it had been agreed upon as a last resort.

The enthusiasm and curiosity she excited among the masses were sufficient to satisfy the most patriotic and feminine heart. Every day from four to five she drove abroad, taking invariably the same route; crossing the suspension-bridge and driving out the wide Andrássy ut into the Stefenia ut of the park. All Pest seemed to tumble into the streets and the footways of the bridge as she passed, and frequently there was cheering. Beloved as her father was in Vienna, his people showed him no further attention in public than a perfunctory salute; and although in Hungary the masses cheered him during his brief visits, it was much in the same manner as the American is enthusiastic over any spectacle that varies the monotony of business. But that the people of Budapest were not only genuinely delighted with this flower of the Hapsburgs, but pleased and flattered that she chose to live among them, was evident both by their spontaneous enthusiasm and its reflection in the press. In all but the Radical newspapers there was a daily chronicle of her doings, and gallant comment; the opposition had nothing to say in her disfavor, and was evidently unsuspicious of her motive in deserting Vienna for Budapest.

One morning, persuaded by Alexandra, she entered a shop for the first time in her life. It was a shop in the Vácri utcza, and she spent a delighted half-hour to the greater delight of the sordid soul that kept it. When she left it she was mobbed into her carriage by a throng that impeded the traffic. She passed through the ordeal with such a lack of condescension in her good-nature that even the women cheered her, and there were murmurs of “Rudolf!” among their “Élyens!” When driving past the waiting crowds in the street, instead of favoring her admirers with the usual fixed smile and stately bow of bored royalty, she inclined her head slowly, including many in one salutation, and sometimes smiling in a manner that seemed both spontaneous and personal.

And then, one other morning, accompanied only by the Princess Sarolta, Fessenden, and Alexandra, she visited the Hall of the Deputies, the Lower House of the Diet. The new Parliament building, that epitome of Venice on the brink of the Danube, was unfinished, and both houses of the Diet still met in the old buildings in the “Magnates’ Quarter.” Ranata insisted upon sitting quietly in the diplomats’ gallery for a time, and found much food for reflection. The magnates meet irregularly; the Deputies daily while Parliament is in session, and transact the business of the nation when not engaged in moving their kings and pawns a square further towards independence. One finds no type in Budapest, and these were men of many types. Few possessed the famed Hungarian beauty, and the majority looked like energetic business-men whose native fires were nicely balanced by determination. They were curiously unmonarchical in appearance and atmosphere; and the unenlightened stranger would have assumed without question that they were the working body of an aggressive republic. The ministry, striking-looking men, all of the Liberal party, sat in a semicircle below the desk of the President of the House, and followed the proceedings with evident cynicism.

The President, one of the few nobles in the Lower House, was lecturing the Party of Independence upon the inconvenient extreme to which it was carrying its policy of obstruction. He sat aloft, and the beautiful Magyar language rolled down, an impassioned yet monotonous torrent. The constant interruptions from the Extreme Left in nowise disturbed it. The “Young Kossuth party” acted much in the fashion of bad boys too big for the ferrule.

“They need Tom Reed,” muttered Fessenden.

“They interest me very much,” whispered Ranata. “I have never seen anything like them. Do they represent Hungary?”

“That is what they are here for.”

“Your House of Representatives—does it look more democratic?”

“Only when it has its coat off and its feet on the desk.”

“These men—why do they want William? Why do they want any king?”

“The great body are not extremists. They know that Hungary is not ready for independence—neither internally nor by her geographical position. No country is surrounded by so many enemies—who hate her for that obstinate individuality which has survived every reverse and threatens to engulf themselves. The Hungarians would make their own terms with William—and give him their help in smashing Russia.”

“Is this matter the talk of Europe?” asked the Archduchess sharply.

“Not of Europe, but of those who do the hard thinking.”

“How could William smash Russia?”

“He only needs the money.”

“Ah! He promised his grandfather on the old Kaiser’s death-bed that he would maintain friendly relations with Russia. It is a matter of sentiment with him.”

“Sentiment evaporates, and promises are nullified, when it comes to a question of self-protection.”

“Or ambition! Will he ever be able to get this money? The Reichstag will not vote it, and the Socialists become stronger daily. How can he get it?”

“Well—he might raise the embargo on certain American industries, and as a return favor they might advance him fifty million dollars or so.”

“You know that is one of the few things he would not dare do. He cannot afford to antagonise another party—he is as much of a politician as your Roosevelt.”

“Well, you see, success in a great war would bind all parties in a common approval.”

Ranata was a thorough European in the sinuousness of her methods; but she recalled the picturesque advice of Alexandra to push a fellow-diplomat into a corner and tell him “to speak out or get out.” She fixed her disconcerting eyes on Fessenden and asked deliberately, “Do you intend to give him this money?”

Fessenden was not to be nonplussed by methods direct or indirect. His sharp eyes met the strength of her gaze unmoved. “Can you keep a secret? Yes? If the time ever comes when our interests seem one, I shall let him have all the money he wants.”

“That is the vagueness of diplomacy.”

“I have no immediate intention of putting my hand in my pocket, if that is what you mean. Nor is the time ripe for him to strike.”

Ranata drew a long breath. To bridge an interval she asked, “Is it true—I mean in your personal knowledge—that the Balkan states would rally to him in case of a war with Russia—that they share the infatuated notion that he is destined to be the savior of eastern Europe—instead of ourselves!”

“I am as sure of it as one can be of anything in Eastern politics.”

“And this story I heard yesterday—that he is having his second son taught Hungarian—is that true?”

“I heard it in Berlin, but not from the Emperor.”

For a moment Ranata hated him. Then she registered a vow anew, and this time her chin seemed to absorb its firm pink flesh. She turned to Fessenden pettishly. “I hate politics!” she said. “I shall play my part here quietly, but there is no necessity to talk or even to think about it, except when I am obliged to discuss some point with Count von Königsegg. Of course, if you have advice to give me I shall be grateful, but at other times please forget and let me forget that I am an unhappy princess imagining I have the fate of an empire on my shoulders.”

“I am not in Hungary to talk politics.”

Ranata lifted her eyes to his; they were both soft and dazzling. “Why are you here?” she whispered audaciously.

The fires in Fessenden flew to his head and flashed from his eyes, but his voice if unsteady came to her ear distinctly. “If we are ever alone for a moment I will tell you why.”

Ranata received her first electric shock of passion. He had won again and with her own weapons. Tumultuous delight, amazement, anger, rushed through her brain. She clinched her hand in an attempt at self-control, and it slipped from her knee and touched his. She recovered herself at once.

“One would think you were a Hungarian!” she said scornfully, oblivious of the significance of her failure to comment upon the ancient ocean that rolled between them. “They need only a spark, and are accustomed to women who are always expectant of the language of love. From Alexandra I have gathered that the American man has been too well educated by his women to let himself go until he is sure he will not be laughed at, and that he is greatly assisted by the national frigidity of temperament.”

“What you learn of the national temperament will be from me, not from my sister.”

Ranata was now fully alive to her rôle. That her being was still in tumult, her brain alert with womanly curiosity, mattered nothing; she would follow her programme to the end. If that end were unimaginable for the woman, it was defined enough for the princess.

“I should like to know one man in my life,” she murmured. “And you are an American—the only one I ever could know, I suppose. I find the prospect rather delightful. But you must not insist upon flirting with me. It would be an unfair advantage—I am terribly unskilled.”

“I have not the slightest intention of flirting with you. I have had no time to learn the a b c of flirtation. Nor do I waste my time.”

“How long shall you stay in Hungary?”

“I know less about that than you do.”

“But you do not take long vacations. Surely, your enormous interests in America—they must demand your attention before long.”

“My enormous interests can—take care of themselves.”

The blood ran up to Ranata’s hair. For a second she forgot her rôle. She tasted the sweets of woman’s power for the first time, and wondered at the barrenness of the regal. “Would you stay here if your great fortune were in danger—if—”

“I should stay here if the world went to smash.”

Ranata became aware that Alexandra’s lips were at her other ear. “Sarolta is going to sleep,” whispered the warning voice. “She will be horribly cross. Hadn’t we better go?”

The Archduchess rose. “Yes,” she said indifferently. “It is quite time. And we have promised to go on the floor for a moment. The President has left his seat. Doubtless he is coming to meet us.”

A few moments later she was receiving the compliments of the ministers, most of whom she had met while her father was in Budapest. She was Archduchess of Austria and Princess of Hungary once more, touched with the happy informality of her brother. The members of the press had been requested to leave the room. The Deputies were standing at their desks regarding her with deep attention, and she played to them quite as much as to the ministers. She stood just beneath the elevated seat of the President, and its sombre dignity made the proper background for her noble height and brilliant hair. She wore a large black hat and a gown of black velvet whose jacket opened over the white softness of chiffons. The color was still in her cheeks, her eyes sparkled, her short upper lip curved in a smile which was less gracious than youthful, and revealed teeth whose like from time immemorial have inspired man with longing and forgiveness.

Her eyes wandered several times to the benches of the Extreme Left. These men also stood at their posts. There was one who overtopped his fellows by a head. This head was shaped like a cannon-ball and surrounded by harsh black hair. His nose was short and thick, but the face was strongly built and the small black eyes dashed beneath a permanent frown.

She turned to the President. “Who is that man?” she asked.

“Molnár Lajos.” He gave the names in the Hungarian sequence. “He is one of the most influential and violent of the Obstructionists, and gives us far more trouble than the son of Kossuth.”

“Present him to me.”

The great Liberal magnate hesitated. He thought of his king and turned pale. His eye sought that of the Obersthofmeisterin. She raised her brows expressively and lifted one shoulder. The President, wondering, for he had known Sarolta through many imperious years, turned and walked over to the young Radical. For a moment it was apparent that the disciple of Kossuth hesitated, but he had the courtesy of his race, and he hardly could decline to meet even an archduchess whose smiling eyes were not twenty feet from his. Moreover, she was young and beautiful. He felt that an apologetic glance at his colleagues was unnecessary, and a moment later he was bowing stiffly before the daughter of the king he hated.

Ranata began in the royal manner. “I found your remarks very interesting. Do you speak often?”

“My painful duty compels me to, your Royal Highness.”

“Painful?” She looked at him with melting eyes. “Are you ill? Pardon me—you look very strong.”

“You misunderstand me.” (“I will not tag on your Royal Highness to every sentence,” he registered.) “It is Hungary that is ill.”

“Ah! Of course I know that you must refer to politics, Úr Molnár.” The name of a man or woman, unexpectedly introduced, can be made the vehicle of the subtlest flattery, of a half-timid hint of deepening interest, may even foreshadow a caress. Ranata’s rich voice uttered the commonplace name, with its long vowel, in a manner to mount to the head of any man. Wholly unused to the effort to please, she would have enjoyed this new exercise of power with all that was feminine in her nature, had the dynasty been rooted in the fires of the earth.

Molnár was young, he was barely thirty. He was ardent and susceptible, and for the moment he was not in love. And although he hated the House of Hapsburg as passionately as ever his great master had done, still was he monarchical born; the soul that could hate kings and love liberty was haunted by the ghosts of ancestors who had lived and died in reverence of the Lord’s anointed. The poison was entering his nostrils. If Ranata had looked like most princesses doubtless he would have held sternly to his ideals. But she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and her ineffable air of breeding, her sweet condescension, and the changing expression of her powerful eyes were pumping the blood to his head. He made a final grasp for his politics and his pride.

“It is your happiness, madame, that you can afford to know nothing about politics.”

“Ah! I wonder if I can? I have been much enlightened to-day. Enough so to understand your meaning. Should I not know more? Can any member of my family afford to misunderstand this most important part of our Empire? It is true that I am only a woman—but at least I have some influence with my father. Will you not advise me?”

“Your Royal Highness,” stammered Molnár. “Your Royal— Yes, of course you should understand our politics—would to Heaven that you did!”

“Whom shall I ask? I am in a position to hear only one side. Ah!” Her face was radiant. “You will come to the palace and give us a little lecture. My ball is to-morrow night. We can arrange then for an hour when you are not too busy to talk to us.”

“I cannot go to your ball, your Royal Highness—none of the Left will go.”

“Not come to my ball? Why not?”

“We never enter the palace.”

“But my ball has nothing to do with politics. I am not your sovereign. I have my father’s permission to live here this winter because my American friend and I are so tired of Vienna, and I am so fascinated by your city. I wish to enjoy Budapest, Úr Molnár. Is my winter to be poisoned by party feeling?—of which I know too little. How illogical, and how ungallant! You will come and bring your colleagues to-morrow night? It is to be the great night of my life, and I am sure you will not spoil it.”

“I? Ah!” Once more he braced himself. “I am afraid there will not be enough women to go round, your Royal Highness,” he said meaningly.

“That was clever. But”—she spoke very softly—“wait. I cannot do everything at once. I have an Obersthofmeisterin. Remember that you are far more your own master than I am mistress of my acts.”

As she finally dismissed the bewildered Obstructionist, she caught Fessenden’s eye. It was twinkling with appreciation of a fellow-man’s enslavement. Ranata saw in the twinkle approval of her manœuvres in a great cause, and responded to the new chord of sympathy with all a woman’s facile manufacture of subtle understandings with unconscious man.

“I feel somewhat of a Jesuit,” she said to him as they left the building. “But it is success or failure, and I shall not fail.”

“Your tactics are those of the man who wins. And I suppose you reason that men will fall in love with you anyhow—that one more or less doesn’t matter.”

“That is an idea!” said Ranata.

XVI

After luncheon the two girls, by Alexandra’s manœuvring, were alone in Ranata’s sitting-room. It was a very beautiful room now, with its golden walls, its rich Oriental hangings and chairs. The windows were open, and the Hungarian sunshine flooded it. Ranata sat in one of the deep straight-back chairs so beloved of royalty, Alexandra in a rocking-chair which had been upholstered to match the rest of the furniture, yet was impertinent and incongruous. “There is only one thing that will reconcile me to parting with you when you marry,” the Archduchess had remarked when it arrived; “I can have a bonfire made of all those ridiculous chairs.” And Alexandra had replied, “I will convert you even to those before I die.”

To-day neither was sensible of pleasantries. Alexandra’s face was flushed, and the Archduchess, although her eyes were fixed absently on Pest, and her profile might have been cut in stone, was bracing herself for the coming conflict. Her subtle brain cleared and balanced its parts. She was determined to lose neither her friend nor her friend’s brother, and an ill-considered word might lose her both. She needed all her resources, for no one understood her so well as Alexandra.

“You know I never beat about the bush,” the disconcerting American began. “You would think me a fool if I pretended any longer to be blind to the fact that you are entangling my brother in order the better to turn the tables on the German Emperor. If he were any one else’s brother I should follow your course with pleasure—I was as delighted as amused at your easy subjugation of poor Molnár this morning; for I am, up to a certain point, heart and soul with you in this great matter—but Fessenden is my brother.”

“I wish he were not. Can you look at this matter dispassionately and impersonally, Alexandra? Do you believe that I can succeed as well without your brother?”

“Possibly not. But I see no reason why any American, much less the most useful young man in the United States, should be sacrificed to the Austrian dynasty. If it were a matter concerning your happiness, I might hesitate, for I love you as well as I do Fessenden; but when patriotism goes into the balance with family affection, pride also casts in a heavy weight.”

“But why do you speak so surely of sacrifice? Men are always falling in love with women, and always getting over it.”

“I have thought a good deal in the last few days. If Fessenden fell in love with you, he would have a hideous time getting over it—if he ever did.”

“If he fell in love with me? You do not think he has, then?”

“He is in the first stage now. I suppose a man can get over that. But quite aside from his feelings, I don’t wish to see him made a fool of.”

“I have no desire to make a fool of him.”

“I should like to know what you call it. Do not let us quibble. If you cannot love my brother send him away.”

“How would it help the matter if I did love your brother? I hope you do not wish me any such unhappy fate as that.”

“I wish only for your happiness. You know that from my point of view the impossible is always possible. And it is not altogether the American point of view. Heaven knows the Hapsburgs have adopted it more than once. I hear that another of your illustrious cousins is about to renounce his rights of possible succession, and his titles, in order to marry an actress—or is it a girl in a chocolate shop?”

“They are insignificant—they lose nothing but their titles and their position at court, for which presumably they care nothing. And you know my sorrow and disgust at all such poverty of self-respect and sense of duty. We need not go over that old ground again. You know that with me it would always be my house first. I should never consider myself for a moment.”

“Then send my brother away. He was an after-thought. You had made all your plans to succeed without him.”

“I am convinced that when William has made his Germany as strong and prosperous—when he has fulfilled that first ideal of his reign—and when my father is dead—he means to make war on Russia, and that your brother means to furnish the enormous sum necessary. And if William conquered Russia—” she waved her hands expressively.

“It is by no means certain that William will conquer Russia. It is a large order. The rest of Europe, to say nothing of England, would have something to say about it.”

“With the best part of Austria and all of Hungary at his back he could snap his fingers at the rest of Europe. Without the interference of Russia in 1849, Hungary would be a free state to-day, and she only waits for her chance of revenge. Who knows what agencies are at work to give reality to the Pan-Germanic movement the moment my father dies? Bohemia might sympathize with Russia, but what could she do, hemmed in as she is? Besides, the Slavs outside of Russia have little desire to put themselves under the heel of the heaviest tyranny in Europe. Most of them would prefer annexation with Germany, if only because the German Emperor has learned the secret of prosperity. If he tempted them with that inducement, you may be sure that only a Pole would hesitate and stand out for complete independence. All this enthusiasm here for William in Hungary is genuine enough, no doubt, but Budapest is as active and ambitious as Berlin, and a ruler who could and would make Hungary as rich and as successful, industrially and commercially, as she should be with her resources and her enterprise, would be quite as acceptable if he were less fascinating. And I will confess that I am superstitious about William. I never raise my eyes to the heavens at night that I do not fancy I see his star laughing at me. Indomitable ambition has united Europe before. There is no sufficient reason why it should not happen again. Before every great change of the world’s map wiseacres have shrugged their shoulders at the impossible, and the barriers have been solemnly pronounced impregnable. How easy it all seems when one looks back upon it. And with your brother—perhaps the United States—as his ally—great Heaven! If I were William I should sleep serenely enough, in spite of all the antagonistic forces in Germany itself. And he grows in tact. He has the brain to learn his lessons.”

“And it is your purpose to reduce Fessenden to such a state of idiocy that he would give you his pledge to let William take care of himself? Suppose he had already given his word to the Emperor of Germany? Have you not seen enough of him to know that he is a man who under no possible circumstances would break his word?”

“I have seen enough to know that he is a man who would give the one woman the world if she asked for it. It is not necessary to break promises. There can be misunderstandings, quarrels, which leave men mutually free of one another.”

Alexandra drew her breath in and her brows together. She had hardly expected such frankness, well as she knew the methods of diplomacy. But she answered readily: “A man does not sacrifice his honor and his friendship, and place the world at the feet of the adored object with no hope of reward. Do you mean to say that you purpose to dazzle my brother with the hope of ultimate success?”

“No; it will not be long before we understand each other too completely for that!”

“What do you mean?”

A deep blush suffused Ranata’s face, and she stood up suddenly. “I believe I shall love your brother,” she said distinctly. “I believe it is my destiny as surely as it is that I was born to be useful to my house. I have never seen another man who has touched—has interested me at all. There has never been any hope in my heart that I should not love sooner or later—perhaps no wish. Would you take this from me—from him? Cannot you understand what a great love may mean to natures like mine and your brother’s—that the earthly consummation of love has nothing to do with its immortal part? Your brother did not receive your letter asking him to come here. We met by the merest accident—apparently!—and he interested me quite independently of my ambitions, my purpose. If ambition and purpose had never been born I should implore you as I do now to let him remain near me as long as possible. I shall not relax in my determination to win him from the Emperor of Germany, but there is so much in my soul to give! I shall give it to him—and I believe he will be satisfied.”

Alexandra, who had been repelled by the half revelation of purely human passion, thrilled at the vision of poetic and spiritual love high on the snowy peaks of Imagination. Ranata looked too exalted to kiss, but the American girl was delighted to find the infrequent tears in her own eyes. In a moment, however, her practical brain replied:

“I don’t believe Fessenden is very sentimental. You will have to educate him.”

“He needs less education than you think.”

“Of course you have already begun to idealize him. He is accustomed to get what he wants. He loves obstacles—and he always surmounts them.”

“I shall give him what he wants.”

Alexandra considered. She had little regard for the ultimate wants of men, had, indeed, given them slight consideration. But she knew that man was extremely prosaic on the subject of matrimony, and she was allured by the prospect of beholding her brother, purified of earthly gross, standing alone on a lofty peak, wrapped in the chastity of spiritual love. She shivered slightly, and Fessenden, somehow, seemed to slip out of the picture; but it pleased her nevertheless, and it was not unlike her own cool and romantic visions of Ranata’s future. Besides, it was not necessarily final. There was always the possibility that Fessenden, if induced to climb his peak, would stay on it only long enough to create a scheme for the further and final subjugation of Ranata. She answered after a moment’s thinking—

“You have put such an entirely different complexion on it! I should be a fiend to betray you. William and Fessenden both know how to take care of themselves. I’m frightfully interested, old girl, and I’ll never turn a hair again.”

When Ranata was alone she sat straight in her chair and stared hard at the floor. “How much of that did I mean?” she said finally and aloud. “How much! I wish to God I knew!”

XVII

Immediately after tea the Archduchess rose to leave the Hungarian house, saying that she had letters to write, neglected in the morning. She had included all in the slight explanation, but as she passed Fessenden she raised her eyes irresistibly. He was looking as haughty and distant as she was attempting to feel. Again their positions were subtly reversed.

“Would you like to see my new rooms?” she asked hurriedly. “I think them very charming. Perhaps you will come up with Alexandra—in an hour?”

When she had gone Fessenden turned to his sister. “Wouldn’t you like to walk about the garden?” he asked. “You do not take half as much exercise as you should.”

They did not walk far. As soon as they reached a rustic seat out of sight of the others, and Fessenden had made sure there were no lurking places for eavesdroppers, they sat down, and he began at once, as if pursuing aloud the current of his thoughts—

“The great uncle, Frederick William IV., of the Emperor of Germany was mad, and there has been no suggestion of insanity in the family since. That disproves not only the alternate generation theory, but that insanity is necessarily persistent.”

“What on earth are you driving at?”

“A good many things have kept me awake at night lately, and one of them is the uncomfortable number of lunatics in the royal and ducal families of Bavaria.” He added deliberately: “I mean that the late Empress, and her cousins, Ludvig II. and the present Otto, seem to hover ever behind the Archduchess Ranata, three black and stalking ghosts.”

“I thought you knew your Europe.”

“I have no time to waste in analyzing court gossip. But do you mean to say that these three were not mad?”

“Elizabeth was no more mad than I am, and the other two lost their minds through specific causes. If I don’t know anything else, I know the facts about every royalty in Europe; I have been brought up on them.”

“Well, explain,” said Fessenden impatiently. “And don’t let your loyalty and your imagination run away with you.”

“You must have learned that the commonplace world always revenges itself on an unusual character by believing it mad. Doubtless you have been called mad yourself. It is only recently that people have resigned themselves to the sanity of the German Emperor. Elizabeth hated the footlights as much as he loves them, and publicity has readjusted him to the common estimate. The ever-increasing seclusion of her life deepened the mystery and the gossip, and both confirmed those who were not in a position to learn the truth, in the belief that an empress who spurned a throne must necessarily have lost her wits. At the other extreme are psychic enthusiasts—over here in Europe—who already have begun The Legend of Elizabeth. A legend of some sort was inevitable, for she was royal, beautiful, unhappy, mysterious, and died a violent death. These enthusiasts knew as little of her personally as the world in general, but their imaginations are of finer fibre, and there was much in this lovely and romantic figure to appeal to them. No doubt, a hundred years from now Elizabeth will be one of the most irresistible figures of the past to the poet and the romancer, for the legend that the members of this cult have set on foot will grow and strengthen daily. Their belief is that she was one of those rare beings who are too exalted for human contact, and that the development of her natural superiority was one of the most remarkable in the psychic history of mortals. Profoundly imbued, according to them, with the doctrine that a man should develop his personality at the expense of every duty, every affection, of kin or subject, she withdrew herself more and more, not only from the world, but from her husband and children, that she might devote her thoughts only to what was beautiful, live the inner life alone, and develop her personality in a manner possible to most people only after they have cast off the flesh; that her sensitiveness in time became so great that contact with common mortals was unbearable. That is the legend, and, mark my words, before a century has passed she will be painted with a halo about her head. It will be only the glamour of royalty, but the world will never suspect that.

“This is the truth of the matter—like all truth, to be found midway between two extremes of belief: Elizabeth was a simple creature, bright, sweet, lovely, but, although highly accomplished, moderately gifted in the matter of intellect and strength of character. Nature never intended her to mount a throne. She should have married for love a man who would have been faithful to her, and lived a life without the ostentation and public duties she hated, a life that would have been filled with all the refined pleasures. Instead of that the poor child was suddenly shot from her simple country home, where hardly a whisper of the world and its ways had reached her, up to the most formal and exacting throne in Europe. Here she was not only tormented by her mother-in-law, but by the rapidly waning love of her husband, to whom at that time she was much attached. She was too young and too undisciplined to accept her fate with philosophy; nor did she ever develop the strength of intellect and character which enables a disappointed woman to conquer life. Life conquered her, poor thing; as a queen and a woman she was a failure. First, while she was very young, she ran away and sulked for several years. She returned, but only to absent herself more and more from a life which she detested increasingly. It is quite true that she loved the beautiful things of this world—art, music, literature—above all, nature. In many ways she was an exquisite creature, and in these congenial resources she found much compensation for the constant unhappiness and the terrible tragedies of her life. Every person of refined tastes cares less and less for the world as he grows older. When the most excruciating disappointments crown this natural tendency, and there is not ambition to dominate experience, then most men and women of Elizabeth’s age live much the same sort of life that she did; and the world knows too little about them to call them either mad or psychic phenomena. So much for Elizabeth—and let no one grudge her success in legend as a compensation for the failure of her life.

“As to Ludvig—”

“A moment,” interrupted Fessenden, “what of Rudolf?”

“Rudolf had suffered frightfully from headaches for several months before he died, brought on by the dissipations into which he plunged to drown the miseries of his life. He was one of the most rarely gifted of the Hapsburgs, from the first Rudolf down; he had no responsibilities to occupy his brilliant and restless mind; he had a great weakness for women, and they pursued him; his domestic life was wretched; he sought oblivion in every possible way, and the autopsy proved that he had unhinged his brain. He undoubtedly killed himself in a wild moment of intolerable ennui and disgust. That Marie Vetsera was present adds little to the significance of his death. It might as well have been any other woman, and Rudolf was incapable of the pathos of a romantic suicide. As to his insanity, it was not congenital; and there was no sign of it before he gave himself up to his last dissipations.

“Ludvig was born with no other screw loose than an inordinate admiration of himself and the actor’s disposition to startle the world from the centre of the stage. All little kings—and some big ones—have a disproportionate idea of their own importance; and to realize the extreme point to which Ludvig, after his brain became clouded, carried this not unnatural delusion, you have only to visit his castle of Neu-Schwanstein and look at the throne room. It was not even built before Bavaria became a mere state of the German Empire, and yet it has the proportions and the splendor suitable for one of the three or four great monarchs of the earth. And this, not in his capital, but in one of his many castles! But Ludvig’s passion for beauty, his patronage of Wagner, and the splendid monuments he has raised in Bavaria to his own artistic genius, make him quite worthy of the inevitable legend. If you will look at his photographs, even those taken after he became gross and had suffered from many attacks of insanity, you will see that his eyes were always the eyes of the idealist. It was to this very idealism that he owed his insanity. Above all others was the monastic ideal of chastity, but he did not have the self-denial to live on monastic fare; and he was a king, and there was everything in his life to give his brain and imagination a preternatural activity. The consequence was periodical attacks of insanity, and the accentuation of his original peculiarities; towards the end, no doubt, he was vicious enough. The same thing might happen to any American, although, of course, centuries of interbreeding render the brain more susceptible to abnormal conditions. So much for Ludvig von Bayern, who in his youth was beautiful enough to demand from the very canvas absolution for all his vanities. As for poor Otto—recall all you know of the Duc de Reichstadt—I mean the young man of history, not of fiction.”

Fessenden rose and thrust his hands into his pockets, staring at the ground. In a moment he raised his head and made the motion of flinging a load from his shoulders.

“Is that all that has worried you?” asked Alexandra curiously.

“Yes,” he said, “that is all.”

XVIII

A few moments later a lackey informed them that her Royal Highness had finished her letters, and they went up to the private apartments of the Archduchess. She received them in the writing-room, the first of the suite, whose windows looked down upon Pest only. It had been panelled and hung with blue brocade, almost as bright as the cornflower, and the furniture and woodwork were white and silver. It was handsome and stately and stiff.

Fessenden wandered about for a time looking at the miniatures; the Archduchess, apparently in her most gracious mood, and somewhat amused withal, moving beside him and giving him little biographical notes. There was one of Maria Theresia before the flesh rolled out, and the face and poise of head were full of young pride and indomitable will; but this artist, like his fellows, had failed to demonstrate the beauty with which the historian accredits her. Several of the men and women had the terrible Hapsburg mouth, but their eyes were genial, and they looked like kindly simple folk. Most of the Bavarians had some degree of beauty, although the young women all wore that meekness of expression which would seem to be the pertainment of the inconspicuous females of reigning houses. The lovely face of Elizabeth, with its strange and disconcerting shadow of perpetual girlhood, looked from several of the bits of porcelain and ivory. There were two of Ranata herself, one in haughty profile, the other with eyes cast down, but, by cunning art, suggesting a swift uplifting of lash and a blaze beneath. The bosom also looked about to heave, the throat to swell. The artist evidently had caught her in some mood of self-repression and penetrated the mask she wore so well. Fessenden studied it for a moment in silence, then turned and looked at her sharply. Again the subtle delight of being understood stirred in Ranata, who had yet to learn that the truly masculine man never understands a woman, and has only a fleeting desire to do so when anxious or uncomfortable. She colored slightly and turned her head away. Its movement happened to be in the direction of the door leading into the sitting-room. Fessenden’s eyes followed here, and he gave an exclamation of rapture.

“Do I see a rocking-chair?” he exclaimed—“a rocking-chair?”

Ranata experienced the first pang of her new condition; but deep among the complexities of her womanhood was that indulgence for man which carries so many of her sex through the shoals of amazement, disappointment, and weariness, into the calm waters of philosophy. To this instinct, as much as to pride, might be attributed her ready words and hospitable smile.

“I suppose it is many weeks now since you have seen one—unless you have happened to notice Sarolta’s? This is Alexandra’s most cherished possession, but I am sure she will lend it to you for a few moments.”

“Yes, indeed,” quoth Alexandra. “I will write a note here, if I may.”

Fessenden started for the rocking-chair, but branched abruptly to the window. “Ah!” he exclaimed, “it is finer from here than from the garden—there are too many trees there. The Margarenthen-Insel looks as frivolous and unhistoried as any pleasure island in America, and that downward sweep of the mountain is very like the Adirondacks.”

“Are Americans disappointed when they find the incomparable in Europe?” demanded the Archduchess dryly. “I asked a lady of one of your Embassies once how she liked Vienna, and she said she liked it very much, but she did so miss her back-yard.”

Fessenden laughed heartily. “Doubtless her husband’s post was a Christmas present from an appreciative President. You know something of our politics, so I need not explain.”

It might be said of Ranata that she paraphrased a famous saying of Mark Twain’s and had adopted the version as her safeguard: “When in doubt talk politics.” She stood beside Fessenden and regarded him with contemplative admiration. “You have done so much,” she said, as if considering. “Why do not you give your country a new code of political morals?”

“The pigeon-holes of my country are stuffed with codes of regeneration. The United States must dree its weird, and suffer the penalty of springing full grown from the brain of the old civilization. Several things may happen, however, before she is many years older: a revolution, which will let out the bad blood and bring what best elements are left to the surface; a collapse of our worst institutions through sheer rottenness; or a sudden awakening of the public conscience. That may happen at any moment, for all our history has proved that you can try an American so far and no farther. The sensationalism of the press has accustomed them to almost anything, from daily lynchings to the unblushing politics of their Presidents; but there is always the last straw, and I await the falling of that straw with considerable hope. I no longer remonstrate; on the contrary, I give a helpful shove whenever I can do so unobserved—and I have my men in Congress and State legislatures. They may not be first-class men, but they are intelligent, and they obey my orders.”

“You are a bit of a Jesuit.”

“It is a valuable lesson I have learned in your Europe. Besides, I want the crisis to come in my best years. Even my father could not grapple with it now; and as this crisis was what I was born for and raised for, you will admit that it is my duty to use every faculty and whatever methods the peculiarities of my country demand.”

“We are not the only ones who think ourselves heaven-born,” murmured Ranata.

“True, but your inspiration and mine spring from sources as asunder as the poles. A fool ascends a throne, with no more than enough wit to sign his name, with not an impulse for progression, not an idea with which to keep his state abreast of the other great nations of the earth, with perhaps every folly that will scuttle her unless a revolution or Heaven intervenes; and yet there he is, half his length above other men, braver, infinitely more intelligent men, who accept him without protest and never forget to flatter. His masses endure him without question, unless he push them to extremity, and often then. Can you wonder that he believes the Almighty placed him on that throne for some inscrutable purpose, or that his people believe it, knowing that they would have selected almost any one else? With us a man blunders along through square holes and round holes until he finds the one that fits him, and then he settles down and attends to business. I had the superior advantage of being trained for a specific purpose by one of the most remarkable men living, and I have inherited enough of him to make the consummation possible. I ‘found myself’ earlier than most men do, and I have been finishing my education ever since. I know where I stand and what I can do. My final accomplishment, of course, depends entirely upon circumstances. My best effort now is to make myself ready to meet any contingency whatever, and to leap swiftly to its mastery.”

Ranata turned her head and regarded him intently. “If I did not know you so well through my intimacy with Alexandra,” she said, “I should find it difficult to believe that patriotism with you was a consuming passion. You have so much carelessness, boyishness, in your manner—and—you are so practical!”

“If I tore about like a raging bull I might accomplish notoriety, but I certainly should accomplish nothing else. And the secret of the failure of the ‘reformers’ of the United States is that they have the ideals and the political bosses have the sense.”

She asked irresistibly, “If it ever came to a choice between your country and a woman, what would be the result?”

“No such question will ever arise.”

“No?”

“Certainly not. Do you think so meanly of my resources as that?”

“But circumstances are sometimes stronger than men.”

“Some men.”

Ranata had let her arm drop to her side; her hand was not an inch from Fessenden’s. Both were acutely aware of the magnetic temptation of that nearness; for a second all their being seemed to have surged into their finger-tips. Fessenden’s curved rigidly inward. His brain was still in control, and he was accustomed to play a careful and far-seeing game. Her hand fluttered towards his; then she swung about abruptly.

“Why don’t you sit in your rocking-chair?” she asked with a nervous laugh. “I must turn you out directly; it is nearly time to dress.”

Fessenden marched to the chair, and rocked himself for twenty minutes with every appearance of content. Alexandra came in from the next room, and they talked of the ball of the following night and of other impersonal things. The peasants had come and were housed, and a remarkable band of gypsies had been found in Transylvania. Fessenden, who was dining in Pest, rose regretfully at seven.

He smiled down upon Ranata and shook her hand slightly. “Can I come up here again?” he asked. “I like it much better than any other part of the palace.”

“Perhaps,” said Ranata, smiling, but angry at the quick response within her to the warm and personal attitude of the lordly male. “You have had your own way too much. I think you need disciplining.”

Alexandra was retiring through the outer room. Fessenden raised the hand he held and pressed his lips to it twice quickly. “I am humblest of your slaves,” he said unsteadily.

“No you are not!” replied Ranata almost as unsteadily. “And I wish you would go. I have never been late for dinner in my life.”

When she was alone she turned her eyes to the rocking-chair; then, after a manifest effort in another direction, she moved slowly towards it, regarded it impatiently, tenderly, then sank slowly into its embrace and dropped her head against the cushion.

XIX

The palace at Buda to-day (restored by Maria Theresia) is chiefly remarkable for the imposing beauty of its exterior; within, the severe elegance of its walls and furniture conveys not a hint of the ornate luxury, the gorgeous magnificence of the palace of the fifteenth century, during the reign of Matthias Corvinus, son of John Hunyadi, the period in which Hungary commanded the admiration and homage of Europe.

Not content with the reputation of a soldier second only to that of his great father, Matthias, ascending the throne at the age of fifteen, and giving immediate evidence of intellectual and governing qualities of a rare precocity and order, quickly ripened into a scholar and the most liberal patron of the arts in the world of his day. This great and singular man, who on the battle-field endured the hardships of the meanest of his soldiers; who, disguised, entered the camp of his enemies again and again, or calmly took his observations amid a rain of bullets and spears, whose justice passed into a proverb, and who was a rigorous administrator of finance, had a love of luxury, matched by no contemporary, that would have sapped the energies of another man, and a delight in purely intellectual pursuits and discussions that rounded one of the most versatile and grandly equipped characters known to history. He established and personally disciplined a body of foot soldiers—the Black Troop—modelled upon and equal to the famous Janissaries of Turkey, conquered the Czechs, and captured Vienna, driving out Frederick, the German Emperor, forcing him to take refuge in a wagon drawn by oxen, and to beg from convent to monastery like any common mendicant. The court of this ardent soldier became the rallying-ground of scholars and artists, who not only lived on his bounty, but were raised to the highest positions in the royal household. He spent his hours of leisure in day-long arguments with the scientists and savants who had deserted all other courts for this most enlightened and fascinating of monarchs, or lying at ease on a couch covered with a golden tapestry embroidered with pearls, in one of the most splendid libraries that any mortal has ever possessed. This library, sacked with the rest of the palace by the Turks after the battle of Mohács, was contained in two immense rooms, whose walls were covered with carved shelves of precious woods and tapestries of velvet embroidered with gold. The books, collected by Matthias, and in many cases written for him, numbered ten thousand. They were inscribed on white vellum, illuminated by the most accomplished masters of the art, and bound in colored skins set with precious and semi-precious stones. On the cover of each volume was a miniature of Matthias and his coat-of-arms. The furnishings of the Palace of Buda, its objects of art, many made from gold or silver and of a great size, the tapestries, the pleasure-rooms, the hanging gardens of his several palaces, were marvels of beauty and costliness; and the embassies which he constantly sent to the various courts of Europe so surpassed the efforts of other monarchs in extravagance that his resources of wealth alone struck despair to the hearts of those who may have meditated an assault upon his kingdom. When about to take a second wife, Beatrice, daughter of the King of Naples, the splendors and luxuries of Buda were augmented two-fold; and on the day of the wedding the great hall of the palace, in addition to its silken hangings interwoven with gold and precious stones, its tapestry of sheer gold, its thousand vessels of silver, its golden service chased with the history of the world, silver casks of wine were suspended from the ceiling, and a huge silver fountain spouted the choicest and costliest of all wines, the Tokay of Hungary.

The manuscripts in their jewelled cases, the thousand objects of barbaric magnificence, were gone forever. There was no modern art that could simulate them, even could craftsmen be found with patience for the attempt; but Ranata had persuaded the Emperor to send to Buda some twenty of the superfluous Gobelins which the Hapsburgs have retained throughout their vicissitudes. Her argument had enlivened the mood of her father, and raised still higher his hope in his youngest born.

“The Hungarians,” Ranata had written, “no doubt resent the very obvious fact that there are so few treasures in the Palace of Buda, and, knowing that our tapestries are packed away in large numbers, and are as priceless as they are beautiful, must infer that we fear to trust them in this most precarious of our possessions. So it has seemed to me that it would be another stroke of diplomacy to send several of the best, with the understanding that they are to remain here. It is a small yet impressive sum to stake as an expression of our confidence in ourselves and our Hungarian subjects.”

The tapestries had been promptly despatched, and now hung in the four circle rooms opening into the Great Hall of Ceremonies, and in the blue drawing-room and adjacent dining-room. These rooms, as well as the long suite down the front of the palace, were recalled for the night of the ball from their arctic splendors by a lavish adornment of palms and flowers, and in several of the smaller rooms the lights were pink. Modern as it was, the Great Hall itself, with its panels, like lakes of liquid gold, its heavy incrustations of yellow bronze on the brilliant white of the wood, and its immense chandeliers, with their thousand points of light, was too perfect in its way to gain aught from the past, nor did Ranata add so much as a flower.

It had been decided that Prince Árpád Nadasdy, an aged magnate and close friend of the Emperor, should wear the royal robes of Matthias, as neither political nor sentimental significance could be attached to his impersonation. The old Prince was far closer upon senility than his king would ever be, and addicted to long nights of Csendes, at the Nemzesi Casino, the club of the magnates, where he had left all of a once large income not absorbed by the turf; but he had ordered his costume of a long-suffering tailor, and vowed, over the hand of his beloved princess, that he would give the final touch of reality to the scene. As Matthias had died in his prime, and was possessed of a classic beauty, Prince Nadasdy, who did not number vanity among his vices, had announced his intention to wear a flowing fair wig and a beard, although the fine outline of Matthias had been shaved on the battle-field. The piercing glance of that monarch no art could coax into the bleared orbs of the old magnate, but he still had a figure of majestic height and carriage, and in spite of dissipations he had preserved its slimness. He was to wait at the upper end of the Throne Room until Ranata, who was to impersonate Beatrice of Naples, dressed for the first time in the national costume of her lord, should have made, in her own character, the perfunctory round of greeting among her assembled guests. He would then stand at her side at the lower end of the hall while the peasants danced the Chardash, and afterwards walk with her through a quadrille d’honneur.

At nine o’clock on the night of the ball the great company was assembled in the Hall of Ceremonies awaiting the entrance of the court, but the aged Matthias had not made his appearance. In that splendid scene, however, he was not missed, and every eye turned constantly towards the door beyond the second circle-room which led to the private apartments of the Archduchess. Many had not yet seen her, or but in glimpses, and by this time curiosity had risen to fever pitch. The women as well as the men were in the eccentric splendor of their national dress, and although it varied little in cut, fancy and extravagance prevailed in the materials of the low bodice, the apron, and the voluminous skirts; and bodice, neck, and arms were almost obliterated by the big dull uncut jewels and heavy chains which, with the ancient costumes of velvet and satin, embroidered and brocaded with a lost art, neither time nor poverty has been able to drive from the chest of the Hungarian. The magnates wore, although lightly, their velvet cloaks, fur-lined, embroidered with jewels, and carried their plumed kalpags in one hand.

The men distinguished in art and letters, without jewels or hereditary costume, still made a fine showing in the silk-and-velvet dress of the retainers of the court of Matthias, but the greater number of the deputies, in their fierce Hungarian pride, had chosen to wear the military uniform of that period, which included a short braided jacket and a velvet cloak of some brilliant color.

The young girls, although in attire less imposing than that of their mothers and married sisters, were quite as picturesque, and their white gowns rested the eye in that blaze of color. Each house had contributed a young son who wore the purple velvet, the golden chain, and the golden network on their heads of the ambassadorial youths of King Matthias. These pages stood in a double file along the two circle rooms leading to the apartments of the Archduchess. In the high gallery that traverses the hall a military band played softly. Beneath, in the arcade, a double gypsy band awaited their turn and eagerly observed the historic scene. Behind them, erect against the wall, as dignified and impressive as the greatest of the nobles, were the peasants who were to dance the Chardash. Their presence was a surprise to all, and they had inspired almost as much conversation as the royal hostess herself.

That conversation was very animated, at times quite shrill, for the Hungarians, as lively by temperament as the American, were more excited to-night than they had been during the visit of William of Germany. The excitement during his entertainment had been, with slight exception, confined to the men, but there was not a woman in the palace to-night who did not feel a flutter at her heart and a shortening of her breath. Not only was Ranata is appearance and manner their ideal of what a princess should be, and the daughter of a queen and the sister of a prince they had worshipped, but they stood in expectation of the initial moment of a court life which promised to be more brilliant than anything in Europe, might indeed revive the gay splendors of the days when their fathers had been the greatest aristocracy in the world—when the Hapsburgs were robber barons and the Hohenzollerns unknown. That this should be given to them who had been starved of court life, that those who were too impoverished to leave their entailed homes and go to Vienna should now cherish the prospect of constant functions, and many private entertainments in the palace, filled every feminine heart with a sense of enchantment, and gratitude to this fairy princess who had dared to have an idea. They were prepared to love as much as they admired her, and jealousy had entered few souls, in spite of the extravagant admiration of the men. Many of the women, indeed, were beautiful enough to spare themselves envy, and those who were neither handsome, nor yet pretty, had sufficient cleverness and animation to keep their little courts together.

Alexandra had decided not to enter in Ranata’s wake. Having none of that unwisdom which permits a wound to self-love that a grievance may be nursed afterwards, nor yet affinity for the rôle of the humble follower, she was always careful not to be placed in any position by her exalted friend that might rankle too late in her brain. She had, therefore, entered the room early, under the chaperonage of Princess Nadasdy, and Zrinyi, as ever, hovered close. He was a beautiful object in his thick gold embroideries, his plum-colored velvet cloak, his buttons and his chains; and Alexandra, in the dull-rose costume with its old-lace veil and apron, lent her by the ambitious Zápolya, excited his approval to such a degree that once more he poured his impassioned avowal into her ears, and begged her to accept the chests of his grandmother as well as himself.

“Are they at your castle in the Alps?” asked Alexandra. “How can I decide such a question when I do not yet know whether that castle is sufficiently romantic to meet my most exacting taste? Like all Americans, Count, I am a connoisseur in castles; and how can I be sure that your grandmother’s clothes will fit? Besides, I am a monomaniac on the subject of microbes.”

Zrinyi, if he did not yet understand her, was by this time sufficiently seasoned to accept her sallies with neither sulks nor despair. Perceiving that she was in a frivolous mood he changed the subject.

“Are you not glad to be here to-night?” he demanded. “To play a part? Who knows what may be the result of the extraordinary impression the Princess has made? I feel that to-night she will either make a—a—portentous impression or disillusionize us altogether.”

“Great moment in the history of Hungary?” asked Alexandra mischievously.

The Count flushed, but laughed. “Yes,” he said defiantly. “I seldom have presentiments, but when I do—I shall not give you another chance to laugh at me. I do not see Mr. Abbott. Was he not to come with Prince Nadasdy? I hope nothing has happened to our king of to-night. He was not very sober last evening at the club. I have not seen him to-day, and hoped he was in bed building himself up for the ordeal.”

“I have not seen my brother since yesterday—he sent word this morning he could not come to tea; but I know of no one so well able to take care of himself. Still I am surprised, for he should be here before the Princess enters. Even he would hardly dare to arrive afterwards. Have you seen him?”

“Only this morning in the park, where I happened to be rather early. Perhaps he went off for a day in the country; I fancy he is tired of being stared at. He excites as much attention as the Princess, and he told me last night that he is persecuted by all sorts of men with business schemes, to say nothing of those who expect him to instruct them in the art of getting rich. I find something picturesque myself about his unimaginable wealth, combined with the fact that he is a gentleman and young; but I admire more his achievements, and I am very proud to be one of the many to do him honor in Hungary.”

Then Alexandra gave him a dazzling smile, and moved a step closer. “You are so much more sensible than you were!” she whispered. “I feel as if you owed as much to me as to your mother. Who knows what may happen if you continue to improve?”

“I know that American girls say things that in any other women would indicate a small amount of heart and soul. It is safe to assume that you mean nothing you say.”

“Think of the reserve force, lacking in your emotional woman! I may not give much at a time when I marry, but I shall have enough left to spread over a lifetime.”

He laughed. “At least I don’t delude myself that you are a poet in disguise. Well, I only ask that you marry me and let me begin your education. You may also continue mine.”

“You really are improving—” began Alexandra, when with the rest of the company she fell silent. The staff of the Grand Chamberlain smote the floor three times.

The doors of the private apartments opened, and the officers of the court appeared, walking backward. As there was no throne, they took up their position on either side of the entrance to the Hall of Ceremonies. And then Ranata entered.

She entered alone, although her ladies followed a moment later. As she walked slowly down the two circle rooms, empty but for the pages, the great company, in curious excitement, which they attributed afterwards to the complete illusion she produced, thronged towards the entrance of the hall, breathing shortly and crowding each other without ceremony.

Her appearance and her solitary progress between the ranks of bowing pages in their rich mediæval costumes, was as startling in its historic naturalness as in its stately and picturesque beauty. The full skirts of her gown were of a material so fine as to be almost invisible, covered with embroidery in pearls and silver thread, and flounces of point-lace. The bodice, sloping outward from waist-line to shoulders, was of pale blue velvet, half covered with lace, and roped together across the black tulle of the under-bodice with strands of large pearls. The court train of blue velvet was lined with lace instead of ermine—thus increasing the ethereal effect of the whole costume—and embroidered with black ravens holding a golden ring in the beak—the emblem of John Hunyadi. Her hair fell to her knees in thick ropes wound about with strands of pearls, two traversing the front of her figure, the rest half hidden by the veil which hung from a tiara almost as high as the Pope’s. On her neck and arms were many pearls. The brilliant fairness of her skin, the flaming copper of her hair, the intense blackness of her brows and lashes, the regularity of her features, and the majestic beauty of her figure, combined with her royal state, the enchantment of her condescension as a daughter of the coldest house in Europe, and her bewildering presentment of the daughter of the Anjous, induced one moment of silence so profound that it was almost hysterical. Then Zrinyi lifted his kalpag and cried “Élyen!” and in another moment the vast company, from Prince Illehazy, most dignified of magnates, to the most truculent deputy in the room, were stamping their feet and shouting “Élyen!” until the chandeliers trembled, and their lights were reflected in the jewels on the waving kalpags. Even the peasants and gypsies forgot their humble rôle and broke in with abrupt discordant cries, the Roumanians shouting “Setreasca!” And then all united in one great “Vivat!” It was a tribute as portentous as it was spontaneous, for it had been accomplished by the art without words.

For an instant Ranata felt a sensation of tumultuous faintness, but she walked on slowly, not relaxing the mask of her face, except for a graceful smile of acknowledgment. Then she was possessed by an exhilaration which sent the blood through her veins like spirits, and in her brain was a confusion of feminine and patriotic delight, insolent triumph over the man who had worked harder than she to make these walls ring, and an emotional melting towards one whose face she did not see in that worshipping throng. It had been arranged that the distinguished American should attend King Matthias as captain of the “Black Troop,” and although his place for the moment was at the head of the throne room beside the King his height should make him noticeable even in the confused breaking of ranks. But Ranata’s eyes did not encounter his, and as she advanced closer to that tossed sea of flashing eyes and shouting voices, this daughter of the Cæsars, who had convinced an emperor and his Metternich that she could maintain the integrity of an empire, for a moment forgot her great rôle and permitted her soul to murmur, “Is he here? Is he here? If he is, does he think me the most beautiful woman in the world? Is he thrilled with my triumph? Does he love me the more for it? Does he love me at all?”

She had almost reached the entrance of the throne room, and the company was moving backward to the walls, when, through the falling wave of sound, a low note reached her ear from a new direction. It came from the blue drawing-room, which here opens from the second circle-room; and although the word was merely the one still echoing, and uttered hardly above a whisper, it thrilled Ranata as even the fulness of her triumph had not done. Only the self-control which the years and her state had given her kept her eyes fixed upon those who would note the flicker of a lash.

She entered the throne room, and made her tour of the guests in what was now an atmosphere vibrating with suppressed excitement. They held their breath to hear her speak; and although to exchange a word with each would have consumed the night, she paused where she thought it judicious and said a few personal words, while her eyes included those close by. When she reached the end of the room she discovered that the royal bridegroom was not at his post, and was profoundly annoyed. She herself might be the Hamlet of the piece, but without the chief accessory the illusion would tremble. There was no sign of him, however, and she could only hope that, fearing the full fatigue, he was in the blue room with his captain.

She forgot him for the moment as her eye suddenly encountered the fixed and fiery glance of Lajos Molnár. He wore a fierce red uniform, and stood against the wall with his arms folded. He looked as if he had been dragged to the palace by a halter and was prepared for the worst that could befall him.

Ranata smiled brilliantly, and motioned to him to come forth. He obeyed with such precipitation that there was a momentary panic in the ranks. Ranata gave him her lifted hand, and he kissed it like any courtier.

“Thank you for obeying my orders,” she said. “Have you brought your friends?”

“Four,” he stammered. “The others were obdurate, but I shall win another time. These are all men of importance; and like myself they would die for you, your Royal Highness!”

“Ah! Would you?” she asked softly. “I shall not ask that—only that you will all come here to luncheon to-morrow, and tell me what you think I should know. Will you?”

“Yes—yes—will I?”

Ranata smiled again and passed on, but in truth she was repelled at the unmasked passion in his face. It was evident that she had succeeded too well; and, while to fascinate him was a necessary part of her programme, his love both disgusted and faintly alarmed her. Like all women whose depths have been profoundly stirred by one man, she regarded the proffered love of other men as an insult, and was merciless.

When she had finished her progress amid a tribute as expressive as its vocal prelude, she took her stand at the end of the room; the Grand Chamberlain raised his hand, and the leader of the gypsy bands struck his cymbal. The peasants made their way to the middle of the hall, and began the curious stamping march which sometimes opens the Chardash. The company were diverted at once. Not only was here a novelty worthy of the night, but the peasants had been selected for their good looks and the superior beauty and freshness of their costumes. The men from the Hungarian villages had much embroidery on their white trousers and flowing shirts, and on the wide sleeves which escaped from jackets as elaborate in device as they were gay in color; their slender waists were bound with the silken sash of the gala-day, and many wore chains about their necks. Those that had been found in Hungary’s Roumanian villages beyond the Theiss wore the ancient Persian sandal laced half-way to the knee, closer trousers, and a graceful shoulder-cloak. Their women wore panels of embroidery over white petticoats, and blouses almost as elaborate; while the Hungarian women, if not so richly attired, were quite as picturesque in their tight bodices of bright cloth with full sleeves and upper front of spotless lawn, their fancy aprons and dainty kerchiefs. All were handsome, and some of the Roumanians with their Roman faces and antique heads and forms had as much beauty as falls to the lot of any mortal. As they passed Ranata they looked their loyalty, for they too pulsed with the popular excitement, but they played their part with a calm self-possession which the great hills and the lonely plains had bred in them, and courts could do no more.

Ranata fixed her gaze resolutely upon them, but her ear was strained towards the drawing-room. Why did not the bridegroom come forth and bring the captain in his wake? But it was not until the march was over, and the partners were swinging about to the first slow wail of the dance, and holding every eye, that she became aware of the trailing of regal garments on the hard floor behind her. Her quick ear advised her that, for the moment at least, he was unaccompanied. She set her face in severity, for she had no mind to let the old Prince take his own way unreproved, and as he finally halted beside her she did not speak nor lift her eyes to his, although she darted a glance of feminine curiosity over his costume. It was regal enough; and in spite of his age he looked a superb and supple figure in his closely fitting armor of gold brocade sewn with jewels, covered to the waist with chains; and his legs in their long silken stockings were as shapely as youth. From his shoulders flowed a mantle of white velvet lined with ermine, and embroidered with the black raven holding the golden circlet in its beak. In spite of her intent to reprove, Ranata’s eye travelled upward to observe how well he wore the crown, the while her ear was alert for another footfall. But her ear forgot its cunning, and her eye the crown it was rising to criticise, the while it should ignore the bleared apologetic orbs of her father’s old friend. Her gaze was arrested and held by the piercing glance which tradition and the artist have given to Matthias Corvinus. And the rest of the presentment was complete, Ranata noted as her knees shook; even under the fair wig and beard the outlines were firm and fine, and the head was well poised and shaped. He looked far more the king than her father or any other sovereign in Europe, except perhaps the man whose memory she had expunged to-night. Had the dead risen? As the room swam round her she wondered if she were expected to drop on one knee. Then the eyes puckered themselves and smiled, and Ranata was the angriest woman in Hungary.

“How dared you!” she exclaimed beneath her breath. “How dared you!”

“Dared?”

“Yes! Yes! Yes!”

“It required no courage whatever, merely ingenuity—a considerable amount of that, however. Would you care to hear the story?”

“I have no curiosity on the subject whatever. Where is Prince Nadasdy?”

“At this moment? I have no idea. Yes, he is probably at the casino—if there is any one left to play with him. Otherwise he is doubtless lost to every variety of disappointment.”

“And you—how did you inveigle that costume from him?”

“Inveigle, madame? I paid a king’s ransom for this costume.”

“Your loathsome American millions! I thought there were a few things they could not accomplish.”

“There is nothing, madame. When they fail it is due to bungling only.”

“You have no cause to be angry—to assume that tone with me!”

“You have abused me like a pickpocket.”

“I beg your pardon—it seemed to me incredible that a magnate of Hungary, a prince who has been a member of my father’s household, should do such a thing.”

“When magnates and courtiers are consumed with a passion for gambling, to say nothing of the strong wines of Hungary, they are apt to degenerate into very ordinary human creatures. The story is a brief one, and I know you wish to hear it. I have had the honor of playing a number of games of Hungarian poker with your prince, who conceived a flattering preference for my game, although I usually won. Three nights ago I told him plainly that I wanted to come to this ball as King Matthias, and wear his costume. At first he merely stared at me helplessly; then he reflected that, being an American, I was doubtless mad, and proceeded to deal with me in his gentle and charming manner. When he was convinced both of my strength of purpose and sanity, I proposed a game in which he should stake this costume and his silence against a sum which I will not name. Furthermore, if I won I was to pay the price of the costume three times over and return it to him the day after the ball. He confessed that he was haunted by the fear his tailor would not hand over the outfit without the price, and that he might have to mortgage his family jewels to pay it. He closed with my offer in less time than I am telling you this tale. His last scruple was of you, for he knew that I could pass unnoticed in the crowd, particularly if I kept my eyes half shut and waggled my head occasionally; and I vowed to him that I would secure your forgiveness—”

“I shall never forgive either of you, and I am ashamed of him.”

“So am I. But one man’s loss is usually another’s gain, and I am here without a scruple or regret.”

“Your horrible money may have bought poor old Nadasdy, but it will carry you no further.”

Fessenden’s hand closed deliberately on hers, and he drew it through his arm. Ranata was aghast, but it was impossible to struggle, and she stood rigid, but closer to him by two inches.

“I and the money you hate have no further dealings with each other to-night,” he whispered. “But for every barrier it has levelled between you and me, for all that it has permitted me to accomplish that makes me more worthy of you, it has my eternal gratitude. And now, please forget it.”

“I can forget nothing,” she murmured. “And you are running a terrible risk. If my father hears of this you may be requested to leave the Empire.”

“May I tell you that you are looking more beautiful than any one on earth can look?”

“Am I?”

She grasped at her receding anger, but it vanished. Into its place flashed an enchanting sense of danger; the wildness in her Hapsburg blood leaped its dike and seemed to roar in her ears the while it sang in her soul. She forgot the years in which she had mourned the subjugation of Rudolf’s fine brain by his passions, and the interminable disasters his weakness had entailed. Why should she not be thankful that her own drama had begun at last? She should live and feel. What mattered the end?

It was by no means the first time the temptation had beset her since she had met Fessenden Abbott, but her brain had controlled her hitherto; she had fancied that her clear vision would keep the end always in view, however she might feel the weakness of woman within her and indulge it in friendship, while working for the cause of her house. But the excitement and exhilaration of this evening had lifted her to reckless heights, her pulses were throbbing, her being was trembling with exaltation, her head almost whirling. And before her was the great company who knew nothing, suspected nothing. To live in their very presence, as if they were ants on a hill—her newly born dramatic sense flew to the fanning of her emotions. She leaned heavily on his arm and raised her eyes.