“Do you know, there have been moments when, if you had asked me, I believe I should have fled with you to your yacht? I don’t know myself! I almost long to have you gone that I may suffer to the utmost capacity of my nature, and then adapt myself to the future.” He had taken out his watch. “By carriage and a good many changes of train we could reach Fiume some time to-morrow; a telegram on the way will bring my yacht there. Will you go?” “Oh! No, I will not go! It is bad enough that I am tempted. Oh, I want to go, I want to go, more than I have ever wanted anything on this earth! Another man would make it inevitable, but you will not; and in a few days I shall be battling with regrets, and hating myself the more.” “Yes,” he said, and with little enthusiasm. “I could compel you, and you would love me the more for it; but I should not love myself. It would not be playing a fair game. I have a Puritanic conscience as an inheritance; also I have the instinct of the American to protect women--girls, perhaps, I should say; to look upon them as his chief responsibility. That is pounded into us early. And I have lived so much within myself that it would demoralize me to fall too far below my own standard--God knows, I fall below it often enough. Moreover, if I gave way to my passions you might--were our escape interrupted--suffer so terribly that it chills my blood whenever I think of it. I believe that is the one thing--the knowledge that you were in your father’s power, unable to escape--that would send me off my head. And it is necessary that I keep my head until I am able in all ways to protect you.” XXV “Have you noticed,” asked Alexandra of Zrinyi, as the Archduchess descended the staircase, “that our princess has, until to-night, for the past week worn only black or white?” “Why should I notice a trifling detail like that?” asked Zrinyi sulkily. “If she look beautiful, what matters her dress?” “You don’t deserve to be asked intelligent questions.” Ranata was trailing down the rough old staircase, between smoking lamps almost as old, in a green velvet gown of many hues, any one of which would have enhanced the brilliancy of her skin and hair. The neck of the gown was cut squarely, and a high stiff collar of white lace rose behind her head. Her skin was bare of jewels, her hair piled high and without ornament. In her cheeks was a deep flush, her eyes sparkled restlessly, her face had escaped from its habitual repose. Her whole figure expressed vigor, energy, impatience ill-confined. “If it were not the Princess, one would almost say she looked reckless,” murmured Piroska to Fessenden, who was staring at the vision--the only one of the company, perhaps, who found nothing foreign in Ranata’s appearance. Piroska compelled him to transfer his gaze. “That is the way I have always imagined a girl might look who had made up her mind to elope,” she continued.