“Good God!” she exclaimed. “And this is the twentieth century! Have I heard aright? Am I a prisoner under an armed guard? Am I more helpless in the eyes of the law than the meanest of your subjects? May any illiterate peasant woman seek redress in the courts of justice while a princess of the realm, whose supreme advantages have set her apart from mankind, is but a chattel among the possessions of her father? I suppose I have known this. But I have managed to surround myself with a different atmosphere. But you--you are a man of the world, and all your faculties are still alert--do you mean to tell me that you have not outgrown the barbarism of the past?” “You may call it by what name you will. I shall go now, and you will meditate--” But Ranata had flashed between him and the door, and he knew that he could not pass her. He was deeply annoyed that he had not retreated in time, but he stood immobile, looking coldly into her distorted face. “No,” she said hoarsely, but still retaining an appreciable measure of self-control; “you will not leave this room until you have heard the truth for once. If you are no longer my father but my tyrant, then from this moment I am your most rebellious subject and nothing more. And I would that I could open my veins and drain out every drop of royal blood. Has it ever occurred to you, sir, that the great enlightened masses not only in America but here in central Europe regard us not with the hatred of half a century ago, but with impatience and contempt; that they look upon us as anomalies, anachronisms, ornamental nuisances, and do not rise to let out our blood on the guillotine only because they are well aware of the peaceful disintegration, the irresistible rising of the tide of independence and liberty? If your people love you--here, not in Hungary!--it is for your personal qualities, not because you represent an idea which, in their estimate of life and civilization, they have relegated to the past, with crinolines and Bath chairs. Do you suppose that what loyalty you enjoy will be transferred to the Heir? You know it will not. That alone is proof enough that the people are carelessly--perhaps unconsciously--determined to have what they want--monarchy, only if it happen to suit them at the moment. There is only one monarchy on the face of the earth enlightened enough to grasp this fact before it is too late, and that is England. There alone is monarchy not ridiculous--and not threatened. What do you suppose is the meaning of the immense and undaunted increase of socialism in Germany? What is the meaning of the incalculable and persistent forces of disintegration in this empire? Look at Italy. At Spain. At Turkey. At Russia--that dares not sleep. Only the insignificant little monarchies are comparatively safe from themselves, being occupied with apprehension of the greater. Even in the United States the unsatisfied tide of liberty is rising. McKinley was not shot by a lunatic, a fanatic, nor