“Do you know what that man has done to-night?” he murmured furiously. “He has left his wife at the station in a railway carriage, while he dines here as the guest of the King! I only pretend to touch his hand! Do you call that a man--to make a woman his wife, the mother of his children, and treat her like his mistress? If he had not the courage to renounce his pretensions to the throne and live like a gentleman, why did he marry her? Would such a thing be done in your great country?” “Oh, well, we do not have morganatic marriages,” said Alexandra soothingly. “It certainly was inconsistent of him to marry her.” “It is very awkward for us. We acknowledge no difference between husband and wife in Hungary. If that man ever does come to the throne, his wife will be our Queen--” “Rise!” said Alexandra, “the King is on his feet.” And now the King had made his pleasant toast to the illustrious guest, the room had rung with enthusiastic “_Élyens_,” and the German Emperor was facing his audience in a stillness so profound that others besides Alexandra longed to have him begin a speech which all knew, from the defiant almost impish light in his eyes, was to be something more than the voluble rhetoric commonly heard at royal tables. He had been in the highest spirits all the evening, joking with the King, at whose right he sat in the middle of the long table, and with every one else in his neighborhood, temporarily charming even his avowed enemy, the Archduchess Ranata Theresia, who sat on his right. In the light-blue and white uniform of a general of the Austro-Hungarian army, his breast covered with orders, he had never looked handsomer; and in the atmosphere of approval that he loved he was ready--everybody felt who knew him--to do and dare anything. But the most expectant were unprepared for his actual performance. He began at last, turning with deep respect to the King, and a slight excitement was perceptible in his strident tones. “It is with a feeling of the deepest gratitude that I receive the hearty welcome of your Majesty. Thanks to the invitation of your Majesty, I have been able to visit this splendid town, whose grand reception nearly overwhelmed me.” He paused as if again overcome by the memory, then launched his first thunderbolt at the tempestuous hearts of a people who but half a century before had almost succeeded in wresting their great kingdom from the monarch whose guests they were to-night--a people whose fathers had died cursing the name of Hapsburg, and petitioning Heaven for the success of the Hungarian arms.