The walls of her bedroom and breakfast-room were panelled with the Gobelins of which the Hapsburgs have the monopoly in abundance and splendor. Her ancient narrow bed, surmounted by the insignia of her house clutching at a mass of yellow brocade and lace, was high on a dais. Alexandra declared that it looked like a catafalque, and was haunted with the _ennuis_ and miseries of a hundred princesses long since forgotten. When Ranata, sleepless and in want of sympathy, demanded companionship, she was forced to transfer her imperial person into the enamelled and inlaid but wide and modern bed of her American friend, who did what she could to banish ghosts. Alexandra had diplomatically refurnished her apartments by degrees, until now they were those of a young American who, while extravagant and luxurious, was studious of music and books and a devotee of light and air. Ranata never felt at home in them, but they exercised over her a certain fascination, for they breathed the freedom of their owner’s personality. “I am told,” continued the Archduchess, still with an inflection of bitterness, “that there are people who envy royalty!” “That is your safeguard--the glamour. It is that blinding halo more than any other cause that has made this country rise serenely after six crushing defeats in one century. The Lord’s anointed--genial yet remote--afflicted beyond all men, yet carefully preserved to his state and people--alive yet dead--kind and just yet--” She paused abruptly, for although Ranata was at times extravagantly informal and confidential with the one friend to whom her rank meant nothing, Alexandra, with all her audacity, never ventured beyond a certain point. There were moments when Ranata’s ancestors rose in her soul and peremptorily ordered up the drawbridge which the lonely princess loved to fling recklessly at the feet of her American friend; to taste the sweets of girlish intercourse, unrestrained by the fear of imperilling her royal dignity or untainted by the suspicion of self-interest. There was no honor that the House of Hapsburg could bestow upon the American, and Ranata knew that court life was too old a story to offer any further attractions to Alexandra. If the Archduchess had not been fully aware that the Austrian Court was the dullest in Europe, Alexandra would have enlightened her: her lively friend could rehearse every word that would be uttered at a function, the tidbits of scandal that would be murmured at royal dinners after the terrible interval of no conversation whatever. But for Ranata she cherished a deep and almost romantic affection, and believed her existence to be the most tragic in the world. Had it been possible--and it was a possibility of which she never despaired--she would have carried her off to New York; but for the present she spent six months of every year in Austria, and sowed seeds of which the Emperor and his court knew nothing; for outside the privacy of these rooms she was