Presently rumour began to whisper that Francis Joseph had got his way. It was observed that Francis Ferdinand paid frequent visits to the house of the Archduke Frederick and the Archduchess Isabella at Presburg. They had charming daughters—the Archduchess Gabrielle was particularly charming. Here, it was felt, well within the Habsburg ring-fence, was the opportunity of an ideal betrothal; and here, at any rate, was the journalist’s opportunity for the intelligent anticipation of events before they occurred. Various newspapers, though not the official ones, grasped that opportunity and announced the betrothal. Official confirmation, they did not doubt, would come later, enabling them to boast: “I told you so.” But those readers of the newspapers who had been admitted to the Archduchess Isabella’s family circle shook their heads. They had seen what they had seen, and they anticipated quite other eventualities. The Archduchess Isabella had a lady-in-waiting—Countess Sophie Chotek: a member of a Bohemian family, which, though old, was poor, and not of the highest order of nobility. Her father had held a governorship in Bohemia; her brother was a provincial official of moderate, but not excessive, dignity. But Francis Ferdinand, while charmingly polite to the Archduchess Gabrielle, was more often to be seen sitting in cosy corners with Countess Sophie Chotek. Often and often he sat a whole evening with her in a cosy corner, talking gloomily about his health, and complaining of the rigorous prescriptions of the doctors. Cod-liver oil, he said, was horrid stuff. It did him no good; he should stop taking it. And Countess Sophie Chotek reasoned and pleaded with him, as womanly women do. Of course, cod-liver oil was good for him—he mustn’t be silly, and pretend that he knew better than the doctors; a peppermint lozenge would take away the taste. Anyhow, take it he really must, not only for his own sake, but for the sake of those to whom his life was precious. “For my sake—to please me,” she concluded coaxingly; and Francis Ferdinand promised, and found that the medicine did work the promised miracle. He got better and better, until he was quite well; and there was joy in the House of Habsburg, and all the Archdukes and Archduchesses were grateful to Countess Sophie Chotek. It delighted the Archduchess Isabella in particular to see that her lady-in-waiting had such a good influence over the heir-apparent, and had succeeded, after everyone else had failed, in modifying his attitude towards his medicine. It did not occur to her that cod-liver oil was a potion which could operate as a love philtre, or that the conversations conducted in the cosy corners might have run on from cod-liver oil to other and more intimate themes.