"Their pleasures are the measure of a society, and that is what I like on this coast. You see in all their perfection the folly and the infamy of the plutocrats.--Their wives? They amuse themselves like jades, and the men like blackguards.--The taxes, the laws, the magistrates, the army, the clergy--all this social machinery which works for the profit of the rich, accomplishes what? The protection of a gilded debauchery of which we have a perfect specimen on this coast.--I admire the naïveté of socialists, who, before an aristocracy of this kind, talk of reforms! A gangrenous limb should simply be burnt and cut off. But the great fault of modern revolutionists is their respect. Happily the weakness and folly of the ruling class are exposing themselves everywhere with such magnificent ingenuousness that the people will end by perceiving them, and when the millions of workingmen who nourish this handful of parasites make a move--a move--ah! we'll laugh, we'll laugh!--Science will make it so easy to prepare for action. Make all the children of the proletariat electricians and chemists, and in a generation the thing will be done." Whenever he proffered declarations of this order the Archduke glared around him with a physiognomy so menacing that no one thought of smiling at his paradoxes, as comical as they were ineffectual in these opulent surroundings. Those who were acquainted with the secrets of contemporary history remembered that a legend, though calumnious, associated the name of the "Red Archduke" with a mysterious attempt made upon the life of the head of his own family. The sanguinary dream of a demagogic Cæsarism was too plainly visible in those eyes, which never looked at one without a menace, and one felt one's self to be in the presence of a tyrant whom circumstances had thwarted, but by so little that one trembled. Usually after he had thus thrown out some sinister witticism no one replied, and the dinner continued in a silence of embarrassment and oppression, in which the disappointed despot revelled for a time. Then it occasionally happened that, having relieved his spleen, he would show the seductive side of his nature, his remarkable lucidity of mind, and his immense knowledge of actual facts. This evening he was doubtless tormented by some peculiar agitation; for he did not disarm until, just as they returned to the parlor, a remark of Madame de Carlsberg to Madame Brion brought forth an outburst which revealed the true cause for this terrible mood. "We shall ask Flossie Marsh about that. She will lunch with us to-morrow," the Baroness had said. "May I have five minutes' conversation with you?" suddenly demanded the Prince; and, leading her aside, careless of the witnesses of this conjugal scene, "You have invited Miss Marsh to lunch to-morrow?" he continued. "Certainly," she replied. "Does that annoy Your Highness?"