“It won’t matter. Even if you betrayed me you could not obstruct my purpose. Of course I wish my secret kept. Only the fool takes the world into his confidence. I only tell you--well, not so much for the reason I just gave, as because you have given me your friendship, and I like you better than any one on earth except my father. You would have suggested the idea in any case; and if we had been cut out for enemies I’d have left the next day, and it would have been a year before you would have known what I was up to.” The Emperor’s face did not soften. He felt anything but sentimental. “Why are you so sure that Europe--that I--could not balk you?” he asked. “Because I have a hundred million dollars at my disposal at the present moment, and the work will be done before you can cook up a war with the United States.” The Emperor turned gray, and let his temper fly. “Damn your American billions!” he cried. “If I could lay my hands on that amount--” “Well,” said Fessenden. “When the time comes you can have it.” PART II I “I wish I had been born in Oshkosh or Massachusetts,” said the Archduchess, with innocent humor. “What have you been doing with yourself?” asked Alexandra. “Your letters were long enough, but they seemed to say less than usual.” The Archduchess Ranata Theresia took her friend by the arm and led her to the window. The fine lace which covered it, woven with the double eagle of the House of Hapsburg, concealed every detail of the room from the curious below, but was a mere veil to those behind it. “Oh, I know this prospect!” exclaimed the American girl. The private apartments of the Hofburg look down upon the Franzensplatz, an oblong court-yard of inconsiderable size, surrounded by flat and dingy walls, its bare surface relieved only by a bronze Hapsburg leaning upon all the virtues he knew not in life. Opposite is the guard-room. In the court-yard to-day were a few tourists staring at the bronze or the remains of the moat and the gilded armorial bearings on the eastern side. All sorts and conditions of people, from peasants with their market-baskets to the hurrying bourgeois and the member of Parliament, took the short cut through the Palace court-yards, while private carriages, with servants in mediæval liveries, and rickety cabs, driven by reckless shouting _kutschers_, awoke the hollow echoes of the deep portals, and clattered across the platz. From two of the upper windows housemaids were shaking rugs, and the only ornaments of the dreary scene were the tall well-built house-guards, who, lackeys as they were, carried their all-round horse-hair plumes and glittering uniforms with the elegance and distinction so indiscriminately lavished by Nature upon the Austrian race.