“Very well,” said Ranata listlessly. The friar would be an integral part of the scene, like enough to those who had gone down with her ancestors, dead and alive. She sat through the early dinner with her father, but five o’clock was now her hour for tea, and she made a bare pretence to eat. She wondered if she would be hungry in the crypt, then scowled so severely at her levity that Count von Königsegg, who was watching her, feared that her suspicions had been roused by something in the dull flow of conversation. Several of the archdukes were present, besides the many members of the Emperor’s household, and they were mildly discussing a crisis in the Reichsrath. The minister had greeted her coldly. He was profoundly annoyed at the sensation she had made, and the consequent failure of their carefully laid plans. That she would play her cards in Hungary with the historic tact of the Hapsburgs he had made no doubt, and that she could fascinate and beguile he had had personal evidence; but that she had in her the elements of a public popularity, so desirable in a sovereign, and so reprehensible in anything less than the acknowledged heir to the throne, he had not for a moment suspected. These last weeks had left him aghast, for he was by no means desirous of the slightest disturbance in the present order of things, nor to be the victim of suspicion from those who might one day be in a position to elevate or ruin him. He had been prepared to declare for the Archduchess if she played her part properly, and her star shot up at precisely the right moment; but for the present he was puzzled how to act. His instinct was to desert the sinking ship, but he found it difficult to connect Ranata with the idea of failure; she looked, pallid and extinguished as she was, cast for a great part--not endowed by Nature with the finest gifts of the Hapsburgs to languish in obscurity. He did not approve of marrying her. The Emperor’s course must be nearly run, and she would be a valuable card to hold when the anticipated calamities fell upon them. However, the man selected was of Hapsburg blood; no vow of renunciation would be required of her, and at the right moment she could be summoned forth. Perhaps it was as well; for what to do with her meanwhile, he confessed, was beyond any inspiration likely to visit his fertile brain. Perhaps she would be ill for a time; she looked so unlike her usual self as to invite the hope, and that at least would keep her quiet for some months.