And then we laughed, and it was probably the Grand Duke Alexis who would suggest that we should all drive out to the Islands and have another supper at a _café concert_. Then I would strike and go home, scolding myself for sitting up so late and marvelling at the extraordinary vitality of the rest of the company, starting merrily on the long sledge drive to the Islands, where they would sit by the hour in a private room overlooking the little stage on which the unsuccessful artists of Paris danced and sang. Perhaps it is because I am Spanish and not Russian that I failed to see the pleasure to be derived from spending the night in frivolity; for, in point of fact, there is nothing characteristically grand-ducal in this curious craze; it is simply Russian, and Moscow merchants will spend thousands of roubles in extravagant amusements between midnight and sunrise. The Grand Dukes are typical Russians. They have the virtues and the failings of the typical Russian, and--I am not sure whether it is a virtue or a failing--they are, like all the Russians I have ever met, exceedingly susceptible to feminine charms. To the Russian, love is everything, and in Russia women have more power to change men’s lives than in any other land. To please the woman he loves a Russian will exile himself to a foreign country, will alter his habits, and change his manner of life completely. It is not, therefore, surprising that members of the House of Romanoff have deliberately incurred the anger of the Emperor and voluntarily left Russia to live abroad for the sake of the women they love. They make their homes in Paris or in the English countryside, and become the humble slaves of the wives they have chosen; while these ladies, although perhaps of humble origin, find themselves treated by Society, always anxious to gain the approval of princes, with hardly less reverence than princesses of the blood royal. But if the majority of the members of the Imperial family love extravagant amusement, there is one notable exception to the rule. The Grand Duchess Elizabeth, widow of the Grand Duke Serge, who was assassinated by revolutionists, shares the simple tastes of her sister, the Empress, and detests the empty formality of Courts as much as I do. When we were girls we saw a great deal of each other at Windsor and in the Isle of Wight, and it was a great delight to me to talk over the old days when I visited her in her palace within the fantastic battlements of the Kremlin.