more European than American. Although she was now accepted as a matter of course, for several years the haughtiest and most exclusive people on earth had tolerated her with ill-concealed resentment, by no means unexaggerated by jealousy; and Alexandra, feeling that the pride of her country was involved, to say nothing of her own comfort, had succeeded in obliterating all trace of the alien. Only an American can imagine the force of the reaction. And this morning, returning after a long absence to find her friend more than ever in need of the diversion she knew so well how to provide, she was forced to pause suddenly and bite her lip. But Ranata’s ancestors were slumbering, and the atmosphere of freedom came subtly to her nostrils. “If possible, my father is more of a machine than ever,” she remarked dryly. “I sometimes think that his very remarks to me at dinner--I see less and less of him anywhere else--are dictated by his ministers. I don’t blame him, poor man, for being afraid to love anybody again. If he wants to be a machine, I should be the last to deny him, and I really believe that he now feels nothing, and is a mere automaton from four in the morning until he goes to sleep peacefully at nine in the evening. I wish I were a machine myself. It must be the only refuge this side the grave. But the stupid physical fact is that my nerve-cells are still stronger than my fibrous tissue, and I must wait thirty years or so for Nature to do her work.” “Your afflictions have been shocking, poor dear--” “I am not thinking of my afflictions. No one experienced in sorrow will ever whine. It is the future I am thinking of--to say nothing of the present. I am twenty-eight. Except when you are here I am utterly without companionship, unless, to be sure, when I am in the country on a horse. Here in Vienna, as you know, I rarely leave the Hofburg--leave these rooms only for the riding-school or some other part of the palace; for my father--or his ministers--seems to dislike more and more the attention I attract whenever I show myself abroad--” She paused abruptly and gave a curious sidelong glance at her friend. “You have been thinking of matrimony!” exclaimed Alexandra. “Yes--twice during the past year. I have been almost tempted to consider it--almost, but not quite. The change would be too temporary. If there is one thing that must surpass the eternal boredom of unmarried royal women, it is putting up with a wired automaton and bearing his sickly children. And liberty! Now, at least, I can lock these doors, and even my father would not force them, and my ladies are only too glad to be relieved of my society. But perhaps I have spoken too strongly. In solitude I have found much happiness. I can dream and dream, and forget that not the least of my dreams can ever come true.” She had spoken flippantly, quite brutally, but she finished with an accent of profound sadness.