“Giving expression now to these sentiments, we will put all we are capable of feeling, thinking, and praying for your Majesty into those words which every Hungarian utters with his latest breath--_Élyen a Király!_” As the words rang out in the Magyar language, so jealously beloved and preserved, from the lips of a monarch whom duty had never commanded to cope with its difficulties, the tongue the King, his host, ignored, there was an instant of almost stupefied silence. Then some one gave an _Élyen!_ as wild and abrupt as a battle-cry, the spell broke, the hot blood of the Hungarians leaped to their heads, they forgot etiquette and crowded about the Emperor, shouting until the marble walls rumbled the echo. Their wild glances never wandered to the convulsed face of their King, nor from the triumphant eyes of the German. Several of the younger men and equally excited women stood upon chairs that they might see him better. Then for the first time in that old palace there rang out the word most hated in Hungary, “_Élyen a császar! Élyen a császar!_” (Hurrah for the Emperor!) Then again that most musical and thrilling of vocatives, “_Élyen! Élyen! Élyen!_” Alexandra took her Count firmly by the arm and pushed him into a chair. “You don’t look very strong,” she said, “and you will faint if you are not careful.” Her own knees were trembling as she took the chair beside him, but she proceeded coolly, “What an infant you are to be taken in by the cleverest man in Europe--” “He is the greatest man living,” stammered Zrinyi. “This is a great moment in the history of Hungary, mademoiselle. It should be painted and hung beside Munkacsy’s _Árpád_, or the _Sally of Zrinyi from Szigetvár_. He is the man for us!--the man for us!” “I don’t doubt every mustache in Budapest will stand on end to-morrow. What a pity you have none.” “Mademoiselle!” he cried, outraged at her flippancy; but she was moving away. She had looked once at Ranata during William’s speech. The Archduchess, as the Hungarians pushed forward, had withdrawn from the Emperor’s side and stood leaning against the wall, her head bent, her arms rigid. Her face was expressionless, but, Alexandra commented, her hair had never looked so red.