Therefore did the Archduchess Ranata Theresia feel that her sacred self had been trifled with, and was filled with wrath against her friend and her friend’s brother. But it is both difficult and anomalous to nurse the severer passions while moving one’s body and feet to the cry of the Chardash for the fulfilment of human happiness. A mist rose to and diffused itself through the historic tiers of Ranata’s brain, and created an illusion. The music of the Chardash, older than the House of Hapsburg, as old, perhaps, as that mysterious gypsy people who brought it to Hungary, was the song of the wind among peaks about a wild and lovely valley high in the Eastern Alps. She was primeval woman dancing with primeval man. A silver hammer rang on the distant rocks, the wind drew its bow on the young branches of the trees; all the new world moved in measure about her, groping towards its birthright. The vague melancholy promise of Nature grew ever more distinct in its utterance, swelled in fuller volume from the heights and passes. The man felt it and swung her with swifter assurance, clasped her surrendered waist more firmly; then in the wild and breathless whirl, where the male, inspired by the reckless adhortation of the music, expresses the insolent triumph of his manhood, and the woman alone hears the persistent note of sadness, the warning of the unfulfilment of mortal desire, the heroine of this tale was the creature of another will. In that dizzying circle she followed his every motion, the peremptory guiding of his hand, with neither thought nor desire of resistance; and when he flung her scornfully from him she leaped back to his embrace as automatically as the meanest peasant in the room. At the end she was conscious of nothing but that the mountain-tops were flying about her in a furious attempt to meet and crash together; the shouting of the men, the abrupt loud stamping of their feet, as the musicians played like madmen, came to her confused senses as the forces of the earth bursting their bonds; and when the illusion abruptly finished and she found herself on the veranda she leaned heavily against the wall and sought for nothing but her breath. Fessenden mopped his streaming face. “By Jove!” he remarked, “that was warm work! But it’s a great dance--and you--you--were simply magnificent! When I get my breath I’ll tell you how grateful I am.” Ranata lifted her head and assumed an expression of frigid severity, which shone oddly from a face that was wet and red from hair to throat. “Would you like to walk up and down the road for a change?” asked Fessenden. “No!” exclaimed Ranata, still short of breath. “I should not.” “You are not ready for another?”