my country as my father’s. One of my obligations is to make the world believe that a princess is above ordinary temptations and weaknesses--a tradition which the Hapsburgs have done more than any royal house to obliterate--and that makes my personal duty the more obvious. Another thing, as you know--to the world I am not even the individual. During these last ten years my study has been to persuade my father’s people that I am the conventional, safely stupid, and normal princess, to make them forget my mother’s supposed gift to this House. If I should do what you propose, Austria would either assume that I was as mad as Ludvig and Otto, or, were they convinced that I had a better brain than my sort, they would accept my act as a deliberate insult to the monarchical idea. In either case I should loosen one more stone in these rotting foundations of ours. Marriage out of class, elopement, a whispered intrigue--they are accustomed to all! But a deliberate renunciation, based on non-sentimental grounds, a flight to America--that would be the new thing with a vengeance, and it is only the innovation that tells. Oh, if Rudolf had lived. If Rudolf--Rudolf--” She pushed back her chair violently, banished the seriousness from her face. “Enough of this infliction. I have opened the safety-valves and feel better. Come, show me your new frocks. Are they finer than mine? What have you brought me from New York? And the bonbons! the bonbons! Do you know where we go two weeks from to-day? To Hungary, for the autumn manœuvres. I am so glad! I have not been to Budapest since I was a child. I long to go. I love Hungary. It dares to rebel, and sometimes it gets what it wants. And our dear cousin Willy is to be our guest. He’s bound to come with a sensation up his sleeve. Sometimes I regret that I was not old enough to marry him, for although I fear and sometimes hate him, life with him might have been interesting, for he at least is a man.” II