Fessenden, who liked a good story, had read the romances of the day which dealt with the imaginary modern princess of the imaginary modern kingdom, thrilling scenes of rescue, hair-breadth escapes, revolutions. They had been in his mind as he whimsically examined the palace, but they were no guide for him, even had he been of a less practical turn of mind. Were there a revolution in Budapest, none would be safer than the Archduchess. There would be no hair-breadth rescue from that palace, unless, indeed, of himself. There was no moat, no drawbridge. The walls were ever visible to more than guards. He would meet her at balls, at dinners; a word alone with her in the garden or a corner of a balcony would seem to be all that he might anticipate. Nevertheless, the situation was romantic enough to keep him in Budapest; nor, he suspected, was Ranata a woman who needed romantic accessories; she would doubtless have interested him similarly in his father’s house in New York. She was evidently a creature of many sides, an infinite number of ingredients mixed into a not altogether harmonious whole. As Fessenden caught himself sentimentally wondering if she were the isolated being of whom he had dreamed, and who like himself lacked completeness, he remembered that he had promised Zrinyi a game of Csendes--the Hungarian poker--at ten o’clock; but as he strolled up to the Nemzesi Casino he vowed anew that he would know the daughter of the Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary if he had to run the gamut of all the conventions. XIII It was on the following morning that the Archduchess remarked to Miss Abbott--they were walking on the third terrace and paused under the shade of a heavy tree--“I have decided that the bodice of my costume shall be of blue velvet instead of black--and the train.” Alexandra being too dumfounded to reply, Ranata continued, “I have concluded that superstitions are unworthy of any one who claims to live by the light of his reason. Therefore I have made up my mind deliberately to violate all that may still linger like weeds in my mind.” “Blue is very becoming to you.” “I think more so than any other color except perhaps green. I have also ordered several green gowns. I shall not interfere with your pinks and yellows.” “That is kind, my dear, for you certainly would extinguish me. I see your new rôle is to lack nothing in thoroughness. Have you made up your mind how the Chardash is to be danced?” “As it should be danced. Why not? All the manifestations are on the part of the men; the women do little but keep time.”