Chapter IX: Part II: I (4)

Ranata was not dramatic, or at all events had wanted opportunity; but had she inherited the simplicity of her mother, which assuredly she had not, she would have found it a difficult task to forget that she was the daughter of an emperor. But she had experienced no such inclination. She might sigh for liberty, and in erratic moments wish she had been born an American, but to her composition had gone the haughtiest particles of Europe. She was not only the last born of an ancient line of kings who had exercised despotic rule over vast possessions, but who had built about themselves a triple golden wall of ceremony. No court had ever been so uncomplaisant, no royal favor so difficult to gain; to-day no house in Europe was so tenacious of its ancient formalities. Every act of Ranata’s life to which the least importance could be attached had been the combined result of her active consciousness that she was the daughter of the Emperor of Austria, and of instinctive ancestral tribute.

Therefore did the Archduchess Ranata Theresia feel that her sacred self had been trifled with, and was filled with wrath against her friend and her friend’s brother. But it is both difficult and anomalous to nurse the severer passions while moving one’s body and feet to the cry of the Chardash for the fulfilment of human happiness. A mist rose to and diffused itself through the historic tiers of Ranata’s brain, and created an illusion. The music of the Chardash, older than the House of Hapsburg, as old, perhaps, as that mysterious gypsy people who brought it to Hungary, was the song of the wind among peaks about a wild and lovely valley high in the Eastern Alps. She was primeval woman dancing with primeval man. A silver hammer rang on the distant rocks, the wind drew its bow on the young branches of the trees; all the new world moved in measure about her, groping towards its birthright. The vague melancholy promise of Nature grew ever more distinct in its utterance, swelled in fuller volume from the heights and passes. The man felt it and swung her with swifter assurance, clasped her surrendered waist more firmly; then in the wild and breathless whirl, where the male, inspired by the reckless adhortation of the music, expresses the insolent triumph of his manhood, and the woman alone hears the persistent note of sadness, the warning of the unfulfilment of mortal desire, the heroine of this tale was the creature of another will. In that dizzying circle she followed his every motion, the peremptory guiding of his hand, with neither thought nor desire of resistance; and when he flung her scornfully from him she leaped back to his embrace as automatically as the meanest peasant in the room. At the end she was conscious of nothing but that the mountain-tops were flying about her in a furious attempt to meet and crash together; the shouting of the men, the abrupt loud stamping of their feet, as the musicians played like madmen, came to her confused senses as the forces of the earth bursting their bonds; and when the illusion abruptly finished and she found herself on the veranda she leaned heavily against the wall and sought for nothing but her breath.

Fessenden mopped his streaming face. “By Jove!” he remarked, “that was warm work! But it’s a great dance--and you--you--were simply magnificent! When I get my breath I’ll tell you how grateful I am.”

Ranata lifted her head and assumed an expression of frigid severity, which shone oddly from a face that was wet and red from hair to throat.

“Would you like to walk up and down the road for a change?” asked Fessenden.

“No!” exclaimed Ranata, still short of breath. “I should not.”

“You are not ready for another?”

“No, I am not ready for another!” She spoke with an asperity quite unnatural in a princess who never forgot to be gracious, lest she wound the _amour propre_ of those at her mercy. The tumult within her had soured and fermented into a sudden hatred of the colossal wealth, the constant exercise of a power greater than her father’s, and the habit of republican independence, which enabled this man to stand before her as unconcernedly as if she were a girl of his own class. Her wrath might be unreasonable, but she was in no mood to admit it, and she was divided between a desire to relieve her tension with tears and for power to humiliate the man.

Fessenden, who was too hot and thirsty to be sentimental, much less conscious of outraged royalty that he had been swinging in the Chardash, glanced about longingly. “I think there must be wine in that shed,” he said. “Where there is a crowd after the Chardash there usually is wine; and doubtless the Count has set up a barrel of his own. If you will wait here I’ll fetch you some.”

As he walked away, his white blouse and skirts flapping in the breeze, Ranata sank upon a bench. For the first time in her life she was nonplussed, at a loss what to do. Her long experience with Alexandra did not help her in the least. Not only had she always regarded the American girl as _sui generis_, but it had been her royal pleasure that she should be so. She suddenly became aware that her friend was standing before her.

“Of course you are angry,” said Miss Abbott contritely. “And I must confess at once that I knew he was here, and might have warned you. But Fessenden is Fessenden, and I knew that he would do what he wanted in spite of me or any one else. Would you rather go at once?”

The Archduchess rose with alacrity. “Yes,” she said, “let us go as quickly as possible.”

XII

Fessenden sat over his coffee on the terrace of his hotel in Pest, and stared up at Buda with little appreciation of its evening beauty. The sunset glow still lingered, pushing forward the dark masses of the Schwabenberg, where brilliant points of light were appearing among the dim outlines of the villas. On the long ridge above the Danube, and the abrupt irregular heights beyond, lights were darting forth rapidly, and one wing of the palace was illuminated. The irregular groups and single dots of fire gave the fissures and cliffs, the ruins of the citadel on its isolated height far to the left, and the beautiful outline of the palace a dark and savage grandeur. On the rough side of the cliff, far below the citadel, was a mass of lights like a meteor fallen upon a void, so dark were the woods and rocks about the little kiosk where men and women drank their iced coffee to the music of the gypsies. Along the ridge on the right of the palace were the melting outlines of public buildings, of ancient churches, the arches of the chapel above the dust of Shêkl Gül Baba, which alone commemorates the century and a half of Turkish occupation, and the modern structures which cover the baths the Romans built two thousand years ago. Down on the riverbank, in the shadow of the precipitous gardens of the palace, the cafés were brilliantly alight, and the music of cymbal and fiddle floated over to Pest and mingled with the strains of the gypsy band in the hotel behind Fessenden.

On the long line of terrace before the hotels of Pest, hundreds sat at little tables smoking and drinking their coffee. On the wide promenade in front many more sauntered, the women gayly and fashionably dressed, many of them beautiful, animated--bewitching, no doubt, to the fine-looking men who accompanied them. Fessenden had a fervent admiration for the women of Hungary, and he had sat at this same table during former visits and observed them with pleasure. But to-night his eyes rarely wandered from the balcony at the southeast extremity of the palace, where several figures were discernible, and the regular rising, lingering, disappearing of what might have been the travail of a miniature volcano. The volcano, doubtless, was the Princess Sarolta of Windischgrätz, for the figures had moved from time to time, and there appeared to be no man among them. Once the tallest of the group had entered the room at the corner and stood for a moment against the light. Fessenden, his heart beating faster, had fancied he recognized the Archduchess, and had half risen in angry determination to cross the river and storm the hill, but had thrown himself back in his chair and ordered another glass of iced coffee.

Nevertheless, his anger did not cool nor his determination weaken. It was now three days since he and Ranata had surrendered themselves to the wild exhilaration of the Chardash, and he had not even received permission to call on his sister in the palace. Alexandra had written him that the Archduchess was doubtless very angry, as she had ignored the day in the village as completely as if her memory had failed her, and every one was in doubt as to the manner in which they were to dance the Chardash at the ball. “But the ball will take place,” Miss Abbott had added, “and if you will possess your soul in patience and remain here, I shall make a very especial point of your coming. She can hardly refuse. Indeed, she would know that if she did it would be the end of our friendship. I refuse to look ahead in this matter. I have always known that something would happen when you met. It is all on the knees of the gods. The twentieth century is not the eighteenth nor yet the nineteenth. For my part, I want to see history make itself, and the past, I hold, is merely designed by the inexorable law of progress as a background for the present. There will be an American queen in Europe yet. I am glad I am young--and I love you both.”

She had asked Zrinyi and Prince Illehazy to call upon him, and he had pressed a tailor into hasty service and dined with them at the Park Club on successive evenings. He knew that he must meet the Archduchess before long, for both these nobles had designed entertainments in her honor, nor was it likely that she would refuse his sister’s request. But he was not possessing his soul in patience. He was used to personal activity in the levelling of obstacles; moreover, the resentment of the Archduchess seemed to him the most erratic manifestation of feminine perversity to which man had ever been subjected. If she choose to dress herself as a peasant and dance with peasants, what right had she to vent her anger upon him for dancing with her as respectfully as the most courteous among them? He had chosen to ignore her state, and no course could have been more consistent. He would not apologize, for he had done nothing culpable; he was as entitled to incognito as herself. To vent her wrath on him for a situation of her own making was a caprice so far unworthy of her character, as he understood it, that he was inclined to believe there was a misapprehension of which he knew nothing. By which it will be seen that there were many things Fessenden knew better than woman.

Whether he was in love with the Archduchess of Austria or not he was at no pains to discover. But his instinct for adventure was now on edge--the youth in him was rampant; New York was non-existent; his weeks of rest in Europe, passed almost entirely in solitude and sunshine, had made his pulses full and quick; he was ready for anything, and his will had never set itself more squarely. Here were all the high elements of romance at last; moreover, when he awakened in the night and heard the distant wail or rush of the Chardash, he trembled and experienced a sensation of being stabbed by something that was both sharp and sweet.

The attitude of the Archduchess, the insurmountable barrier she had raised, but whetted his determination to know her. With all his contempt for monarchy, he was still too wise in its ways to make the mistake of republican approach. He was unconventional, but he was also a man of the world; while he would not hesitate to insist upon talking with any sovereign as man to man, with no more formality than he would yield to the President of the United States, he knew that to walk up to a palace door and demand admittance, even to his sister’s apartments, would be merely to make an ass of himself. Moreover, he had long since learned that one of the secrets of man’s victory over life is never to court certain failure.

The afternoon before, he had crossed over to Buda and walked all round the palace. The great gates on the Danube looked impervious to battering-rams. On the farther side of the court-yard the central portion of the palace, which was of a symmetrical height in front, was built straight down to the street behind in no less than eighteen tiers of rooms. There were guards everywhere, and it looked as impregnable as a fortress. The gardens surrounded the front and south of the palace. At the north end were more guards, and just without the great court-yard, easy of access at its northern extremity, its southern gates closed upon the private gardens, was the guard-house. Connecting the vast front of the palace with the mass at the rear of the court-yard were galleries and many rooms. The private apartments of the royal family did not look upon the court, but were in the extension beyond it, above that sacred portion of the grounds to which the public was never admitted. No princess had ever been more securely intrenched. The wild idea of disguising himself as a working-man, and obtaining entrance to the portion of the palace as yet unfinished within, had invaded Fessenden’s brain and been dismissed. In that huge labyrinth a man would be lost and found many times before he was escorted to the guard-house.

Fessenden, who liked a good story, had read the romances of the day which dealt with the imaginary modern princess of the imaginary modern kingdom, thrilling scenes of rescue, hair-breadth escapes, revolutions. They had been in his mind as he whimsically examined the palace, but they were no guide for him, even had he been of a less practical turn of mind. Were there a revolution in Budapest, none would be safer than the Archduchess. There would be no hair-breadth rescue from that palace, unless, indeed, of himself. There was no moat, no drawbridge. The walls were ever visible to more than guards. He would meet her at balls, at dinners; a word alone with her in the garden or a corner of a balcony would seem to be all that he might anticipate. Nevertheless, the situation was romantic enough to keep him in Budapest; nor, he suspected, was Ranata a woman who needed romantic accessories; she would doubtless have interested him similarly in his father’s house in New York. She was evidently a creature of many sides, an infinite number of ingredients mixed into a not altogether harmonious whole. As Fessenden caught himself sentimentally wondering if she were the isolated being of whom he had dreamed, and who like himself lacked completeness, he remembered that he had promised Zrinyi a game of Csendes--the Hungarian poker--at ten o’clock; but as he strolled up to the Nemzesi Casino he vowed anew that he would know the daughter of the Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary if he had to run the gamut of all the conventions.

XIII

It was on the following morning that the Archduchess remarked to Miss Abbott--they were walking on the third terrace and paused under the shade of a heavy tree--“I have decided that the bodice of my costume shall be of blue velvet instead of black--and the train.”

Alexandra being too dumfounded to reply, Ranata continued, “I have concluded that superstitions are unworthy of any one who claims to live by the light of his reason. Therefore I have made up my mind deliberately to violate all that may still linger like weeds in my mind.”

“Blue is very becoming to you.”

“I think more so than any other color except perhaps green. I have also ordered several green gowns. I shall not interfere with your pinks and yellows.”

“That is kind, my dear, for you certainly would extinguish me. I see your new rôle is to lack nothing in thoroughness. Have you made up your mind how the Chardash is to be danced?”

“As it should be danced. Why not? All the manifestations are on the part of the men; the women do little but keep time.”

The moment was favorable, the ice of Ranata’s three days’ reserve being broken, but Alexandra hesitated to introduce the subject of Fessenden. When Ranata chose to be unfathomable there was an aloofness about her which suggested that her soul was surrounded by the watchful ghosts of all her ancestors. She had never looked more aloof than to-day, despite the apparent frivolity of her conversation. She was standing very straight, apparently absorbed in contemplation of the roofs of Pest, glittering in fragments through the leaves of Buda. In the deep shade of the tree her face looked like marble, her hair like metal. There had been no coolness between the girls since the day of the _festa_. They had been much together and talked on any other subject; but it had been evident to Alexandra that a part of the Archduchess’s mind had been bent introspectively, and she had retired to her bedroom earlier and left it later than was her habit. How Fessenden had impressed her, what tortuous train of thought she had been following, Alexandra felt it would be folly to guess, for she knew there were depths and ways in that mind no friend would ever enter. But it was her policy never to manifest surprise, except at some lighter erraticism, and she did not lift an eyebrow when Ranata turned to her and said sweetly:

“Do you think your brother would dine with us to-night? We were to have been forty, but Sarolta tells me that Count Ábris Teleky is ill.”

“I am sure Fessenden would be delighted.”

“Will you write, or shall Sarolta send him a formal invitation?”

“I will write. Perhaps I had better go at once.”

“I will wait for you here.”

“How did she know he is in Pest?” wondered Miss Abbott, as she ran up the steps in the terrace wall. “And _what_ is she up to?”

When she returned, Ranata was sitting on the rustic bench staring at the ground. Alexandra sat down beside her.

“What do you think of Count Zrinyi’s invitation to visit his castle in the Transylvanian Alps?” she asked.

“I should like to go. Retyezat was the scene of Rudolf’s first visit to Transylvania--he was the guest of Count Samuel Teleky who took him to Boldogfalva, the castle of Baron Kendeffy--it is not far from Zrinyi’s castle--and they went into camp on Lake Zenoga. That was one of the most delightful experiences of Rudolf’s life! He hunted the bear all over those frozen peaks, high above any vegetation except the Alpine roses. He used to thrill me with his descriptions of those terrible rugged mountains, the breathless wait for the bear, sometimes terrified, as often stolidly unsuspecting, and then the wild dance of the Wallach and Roumanian beaters round the camp-fire at night to the music of their flutes. Rudolf and all the others of the party sat huddled under a rock, muffled in furs, smoking the long Hungarian pipe; but the wild men of the mountains were warm enough, for they danced like fiends, and the effect of the wild gyrations almost in the very midst of the leaping flames, the great teeth of the rocks cutting the sky on every side, the gathering storm shrieking into the sweet wild music of the flutes, the infernal cries of the excited creatures--I remember Rudolf swept all the things off my most precious table in his animation the first time he told me the story! Those were his happiest days--his hunting expeditions to Transylvania for bear and other game, and he loved to talk to me about them, for no one else cared to listen--at home, at least. Even when I was a child he often came and spent an hour with me, partly out of pity for my loneliness, partly because I was so much like himself in many ways, and in despair that I could not join in all his sports. He promised me the last time he returned from Transylvania that the next year I should go with him to Görgény--the crown property where he always went after that first visit. The occasion upon which he won his oak as a Transylvanian bear-hunter was almost as exciting in another way. When he had killed his first bear the beaters tied its legs together, and raising it on crossed poles carried it through the forest to the stretchers, followed by all the Roumanians in their strange costumes shouting _Setreasca! Setreasca!_ The guests surrounding Rudolf responded with _Élyens_ almost as wild, and Count Teleky dipped an oak twig in the bear’s blood and presented it to Rudolf, who stuck it in his cap. When he returned to the castle in the evening, all the delighted and shouting people knew by that sign that their prince had taken his position among the great bear-hunters of Transylvania.”

Ranata had been speaking rapidly and excitedly. As she finished she sprang to her feet. The blood was in her cheeks, and her eyes were flashing with a curious angry animation.

“Do you think any man could ever come between me and the memory of my brother?” she demanded passionately--“between my duty to his memory, to his unfinished work? Do you think that I could ever admire, love, respect any man one-half so well? What of his weaknesses? He had the greatest of natures. He knew that he had the fate of Europe in his hands, and he would have made the soberest of rulers. Do you think that any woman was ever so fortified as I against the common weakness of woman? Rudolf!--Austria!--” She turned abruptly and walked down the dim path under the wall.

Alexandra caught her breath. She felt curiously uncomfortable, as a sensitive American girl, unskilled in feeling, always does at the sudden revelation of passion in another woman. Calmly to analyze the passions of the world, and stare ironically at the complications of life through a lorgnette, was all in the mental progress of a girl brought up with the peculiar advantages of Alexandra and possessing her uncommon acuteness; but direct contact vaguely offended the cool purity of her lighter nature.

She also experienced a sensation of terror which vibrated oddly among her calm and calculating particles. Should she write and tell Fessenden to go at once? Or--might it not be merely Ranata’s imagination that had taken fire? Impossible that she could love a man with whom she had not exchanged ten words; who to his sister’s critical eye had looked like anything but a god with his shirt hanging over his skirts, and sweating like any crimson peasant in the room--she had sent Zrinyi out immediately to wash his face. No, she decided, after a few moments of hard maidenly thinking, it was merely the romantic streak in that abundant dreaming nature that had claimed dominion for the moment--aggravated no doubt by much retrospection and idealizing since; the occasion and Fessenden, to Alexandra’s mind, stood in need of at least three days’ perspective and created glamour. But should she send away Fessenden and leave Ranata at peace with her dead and her duties? She hardly had realized what she expected to result upon the meeting of these two. A vague and picturesque drama, mixed with much history, with a final prophetic vision of the two in New York, had whirled through her head. Passion, suffering, tragedy--she had given them no thought, well as she knew Ranata’s capacity for all. Her friend had been the heroine of many romances woven by her energetic brain; but the romances had been creations of an exalted and poetic nature, like unto what she assumed the gods and goddesses had compassed.

And Fessenden? How would he fall in love? He usually teased her and joked with her; but his serious side and his achievement had no more fervent admirer. He had never told her an anecdote in which a woman figured sentimentally; to what degree women had the power to move him she found herself unable to imagine. He certainly was adventurous--born to make and to change history; therefore had she coupled him with Ranata in some great drama of the future; but in looks and deportment he was as little romantic as any other American. She calculated rapidly that he had upset most of her theories about him at least once a year since she had known him, and recalled that she had frequently wondered how well she ever should know him. She half rose. Should she send him away? She sank back with a laugh. That was beyond the power of anything short of law or violence. She recalled the angry and determined letter she had received the day before.

“He will come!” she thought. “They will meet and talk. Well--it is all on the knees of the gods.”

Ranata returned and sat beside her. “We were talking about visiting your count,” she said. “I am sure you want to go, and it will give me the opportunity to make the progress I intended through some of the villages. But it will have to be a little later. I must start the ball here first--make as deep an impression as possible before leaving Budapest even for a week. Why do you not ask your brother to take tea with you to-day? I shall be engaged this afternoon, but you will enjoy having him to yourself. Forgive me that I did not think of it before, but my mind has been so full of other things--the best plan of campaign with the members of the Left, for one. And tell him of all our plans and schemes. I should be glad of the advice of one so accustomed to the management of men.”

XIV

The Princess Sarolta, apparently absorbed in the achievements of the chef of Királyi Palota and the lively conversation about her, observed her imperial charge and pondered. It was the first time that Ranata had played the part of independent hostess beyond the limits of her small court and the few privileged friends, and the Princess was not surprised at her sudden blossoming into a graceful, almost informal, hostess, with a word of personal meaning for each of her guests as she greeted them, and an animation at table which a keen sense of liberty and her desire for popularity had finally set free. But what puzzled and faintly alarmed the valiant but suspicious soul of the Obersthofmeisterin was her exceeding graciousness to the brother of her American friend. The Archduchess had lifted her chin coquettishly as he bowed formally before her, and then offered him her hand with a spontaneous warmth as she made known her wholly feminine and unroyal pleasure in meeting the brother of her dearest friend. To the handshake and the remarks the Princess had no particular objection--there was fitness in both; but why the blush and the coquetry? Why the curiously puzzled expression of Mr. Abbott, followed by a flash of relief and pleasure? Why the constant change of expression as she turned from Prince Illehazy who sat on her right to the American who sat on her left? The Princess was abnormally acute in the ways of her sex, and with age she added to the sum of a knowledge born of much experience, while forgetting nothing. It was towards the middle of the dinner that her alarm faded, and she remarked to herself: “She is up to some game or other. She is playing a part. But what an actress! Who would have suspected--but no, has she not always been playing the parts demanded of her rank? This is merely one of her own choosing. But what does it mean? I must find out before I sleep to-night.”

Ranata, to those who knew her well, had never looked so beautiful. She wore white, for her colored wardrobe had not yet come, but the low bodice of her gown had been trimmed with blue velvet flowers, and there were sapphires on her neck instead of the usual pearls. Her brilliant coppery hair was arranged with so many little sparkling combs that it looked as if enmeshed in a diamond net; and almost in front was a sapphire lily. She had adjusted her new manner to perfection; while losing nothing of the dignity of the princess, she was a girl delighting in the levity of the hour, a human being conscious to the quick of unrestricted intercourse with lively and intelligent minds. She joined in the general conversation as far as was possible; pleasing and astonishing her guests with her intimate knowledge of Hungarian affairs and the crisis of the moment--there is always a crisis in Hungary--her subtly expressed sympathy, and her constant intimate references to the mother and brother who had been so beloved by this ardent and appreciative people. Her evident devotion to the memory of her brother would have insured her popularity had she reminded them less of him, been less attractive in herself. Those within her range had no sense whatever of being entertained by royalty; forgot the awful dinners they had sat through with their king; were at exactly the same informal ease as when dining with each other. And yet, so deathless is the reverence of the monarchical born for majesty and all begotten of majesty; so insidious the flattery of those whose souls are steeped in purple; that even these most independent of all monarchists unconsciously swelled with a fuller enthusiasm for the beautiful and gracious hostess, inasmuch as she commanded homage by divine right.

During the early part of the dinner Ranata was conscious only of the buoyant atmosphere, the gay content of her guests, their versatility of mind, their very evident admiration of herself, the smiling approval of the beautiful women in the pink flood of the palm-and-flower-filled gallery where the table was spread. It was her first taste of power, and it was not only sweet but inspiring. Her own enthusiasm waxed high. She felt expansive, democratic. Her ardent nature struggled with its bonds. She felt a momentary impulse to tell them that she was happy for the first time in her life, and felt as keenly as they the common bond of human nature.

She hardly knew when she began to feel the subtle difference between the American’s homage and that of the great Hungarian magnates. For some time her words with him were desultory, so much of her attention was demanded elsewhere; but as the conversation at the long table coupled, and the beautiful Roumanian, wife of Count Ábris Teleky, who sat on the other side of Prince Illehazy, absorbed more and more of his attention, she found her own consecutively claimed by Fessenden Abbott. She had been content with the apparent impression her coquetry and graciousness had made on the American, reflecting with arrogance that there is nothing so dense as the vanity of man. It was not long before she was made aware that Fessenden, if admiring, was not prostrate; that sensible as he might be to her flattery, his head was still cool. But it was not until they talked without interruption that she experienced for the first time in her life the sensation of being a mere woman talking to a mere man, and realized in a flash that she had spent the early part of the evening in a fool’s paradise. Given to self-analysis, she wondered at its fascination, for Fessenden’s attitude after the Chardash had been intensely irritating. But every nerve in her had been on edge during that extraordinary dance; however he had comported himself at its finish would doubtless have served as a pretext for opening a safety-valve among the sensations that were oppressing her. To-night she was filled with good-will to all the world; she had already sighed for democracy, and while she sighed again at the death of an illusion, it was doubtless consistent to accept pleasurably a momentary sensation of true equality. That this famous American, who was beginning to appall the world with his resource, was dazzled by her beauty and captivated by her charm, was apparent to whomsoever chose to observe, but it was the surrender of man to his goddess; his eyes were level, not upcast in the homage of courtier to princess. His masculine vanity was flattered, no doubt, but by the woman, not by the daughter of the Emperor of Austria.

For a time the conversation was impersonal enough. “I hope you will come to my ball,” the Archduchess had said, and then added with a laugh--“That ball! How often its plans have been changed! The Princess Sarolta thought that it should be given to the aristocracy alone, but I have finally decided that all the members of Parliament shall be invited, and all who have distinguished themselves in art and letters. I am not very patient. I do not like doing things by degrees. You saw Alexandra this afternoon? I told her to take you into our confidence.”

“It is a very great scheme, and I am entirely at your disposal. But what do you intend, in this instance, to do about the wives of your untitled members? And the wives of your other distinguished guests who do not come to court as a matter of course?”

“Oh, the women cannot come. They do not expect it.”

“They would be valuable allies.”

“It is quite impossible. The women of the aristocracy would rebel--would stay away from court, no doubt.”

“I wonder. Court life in Hungary is very rare. Surely you are powerful enough to set your own fashions.”

But Ranata looked determined and unmoved. “I should lose much and gain nothing. And, besides, I do not wish it. An empire is an empire, not a republic. If I opened the gates, where would be the end? I should be shaking hands with eight thousand people of an evening, like your poor President.”

“You would find that rather interesting. Your wild and picturesque peasants--Hungarians, Roumanians, Wallachians, Servians, Croats, Orthodox Jews, and what not--would come pouring in from their fastnesses.”

“I shall go to them in their villages. To hold a little court for them, as it were, will be delightful. But here--it would be only to cheapen myself.”

“It would be a great victory gained if you could bring the members of the Extreme Left to court. The Emperor cannot; but if you invited their wives, no doubt you would conquer their prejudices--the wives would see to that.”

“Do you think I have given no thought to the Kossuths? I have my plan of campaign. ‘Just you wait,’ as Alex would say.” She lifted her eyes and looked directly at him; there was not even defiance in their rays. “It has also been decided that although all the magnates and their families will come in the national costume, only a hundred of the younger will dance the Chardash. The older--the men at least--seem to have lost nothing of their fire, but I fear apoplexy.”

“It certainly requires the wind of youth. I suppose I shall not be permitted to dance it,” he added discontentedly. “Whom shall you dance it with?”

She hesitated a perceptible half moment; then she answered, “I shall not dance it at all.”

He turned to her with a flash in his eyes, and her own dropped. “Allow me to contribute an idea. Why not have it danced by peasants? Many of the women have beautiful costumes, although they do not always wear them; enough could be found, at all events. Bring them here--house them in the servants’ quarters for two or three nights. Do not offer to pay anything but their expenses. Ask them to come as a favor. Give them a feast and dance of their own afterwards. All the peasantry of Hungary will be delighted. Let your other guests dance the Chardash in their own way afterwards. You would then please everybody. I suppose no one has dared to tell you, but the women are by no means enthusiastic at the prospect of having the breath whirled out of them; and many are disappointed at not being able to wear their latest costumes from Paris and Vienna.”

“Ah! That _is_ the truth, I suppose.” She laughed. “The evolution of a ball! One would think this was the first that ever had been heard of. But I like your idea. Yes--it shall be. And only those who wish shall dance the Chardash.”

“Then,” said Fessenden quickly, “you can dance with me afterwards. I have to wear some sort of a costume, anyhow.”

She caught her breath, and again her anger rose.

“It is customary,” she began haughtily, then paused, at a loss how to word her rebuke. This was not only an American, but a sovereign in his way, and her friend’s brother. She stole a glance at him. He had thrown back his head, and was staring down at her with a glitter in his eyes that made them seem peculiarly contracted. He looked more angry than she felt. She lifted her head and said defiantly, “I shall not dance at all.”

“That is a great pity,” said Fessenden coldly, “for I never knew any one to enjoy dancing more.” Then, as her face flushed and her own eyes glittered, he added deliberately: “I have no intention of ignoring an experience which I have lain awake more than one night to remember. There is no reason why the subject should be taboo, and it makes an absurd and annoying complication. Do you expect me to be eternally on my guard lest I make a reference to it?”

For a moment the Archduchess did not answer. Her next words must decide the status of their future acquaintance, possibly would determine whether they ever met again or not. There was no mistaking the gauntlet he had thrown down: she was to take him on his own terms or not at all. Should she? Should she? Her anger had ebbed in an unaccountable manner. There was something very alluring in the prospect not only of a new variety of homage, but of adventuring farther on the path of liberty. Many changes had lifted their heads within her since her break for comparative independence and her rapid victory. She was beginning to perceive how fatally easy it is for women and nations to cross the border between liberty and license. Four days ago she had made an appalling addition to the limited sum of her experiences: she had known for a few moments the intoxication of abandonment. The retrospect had filled her with an alternate fury and delight. Woman-like she had vented her wrath on the man; and he had commanded her waking thoughts to the exclusion of the Austrian dynasty. Then, with the elaborate subtlety of the feminine mind, she had persuaded herself that her duty to her country demanded that she win the American from the man who menaced the future integrity of the Austrian Empire; and, buoyed up by the virtue of her cause, she had drawn him into the circle of her influence, having first analyzed him into the abstract condition of a curiosity. During the last half-hour she had quite forgotten that virtue alone had summoned Fessenden Abbott to court; but as she hesitated, fascinated, but doubting the policy of letting him eat the fruits of victory, the devil, which sits on his tail in a corner of every woman’s brain, plucked this virtue from its hook and flung it into the light.

She raised her brilliant powerful eyes to his and said sweetly: “You have placed me in a position from which there are only two outlets. I acknowledge myself defeated. What is it you would like to say about our Chardash? I am quite ready to discuss it threadbare.”

He laughed, but without annoyance, for she had uttered the words “our Chardash” in a tone that gave him a sharp sensation of delight. “The laurels are to you,” he said with commendable sobriety. “It is my turn to acknowledge defeat. I shall never mention the subject again except at your command.”

She had accomplished her purpose, and should have been satisfied. But she was filled with a sudden desire to hear all that he had left unsaid. What had he wanted to tell her? How had he felt for her that day? What did the memory mean to him? She cast about in her mind for the words that would express a delicate and elusive query, to lead him on, while not committing herself. But an interview with a Königsegg was a simple matter beside playing with fire when the fire was actually between one’s fingers; the hereditary game of coquetry was no guide. Nonplussed, but unwilling to leave the subject, she bit her lip and drew a long breath.

“What are you sighing about?” asked Fessenden.

“I am a woman and inconsistent.”

“I know less about women than you do, so I can’t help you out--at all events unless you tell me what is the matter with you.”

“Alexandra is direct, but she has a great deal of subtlety!”

“I haven’t a particle of subtlety. I’ll give a direct answer to a direct question from anybody but a South American president or a Chinaman. What is it?”

“I don’t think I’ll tell you,” said Ranata hurriedly. “How I long to hear all your adventures at first hand! Even listening to Alexandra, I have held my breath. But we are going to have our coffee on the terrace.”

A few moments later, as the company was standing about the pillared gallery behind the vines, the Princess Sarolta took Alexandra’s arm and strolled with her beyond the others.

“Why are you angry?” asked the watchful Obersthofmeisterin.

“Ranata is trying to make a fool of my brother.”

“You are making a fool of Zrinyi. Your brother has doubtless been made a fool of before. I was afraid that Ranata was taking man--in the person of your brother--as seriously as she has taken all life heretofore.”

Alexandra was on the alert at once. “You are quite mistaken,” she said indifferently. “Ranata has a very particular reason for turning my brother’s head. I promised, in a moment of enthusiasm, to help her. I do not know that that would hold, but I am in a quandary. I want Ranata to succeed in all that she has undertaken, but I do not want my brother sacrificed.”

“At your age tender consideration for a man is a characteristic! It is one of the amusing reminiscences of age. When you have learned, my child, how much they can stand--_enfin!_ I am relieved that it is this way, for although I hope to have Ranata under my supervision when she goes through the inevitable, yet I shrink from it--and there is little I do shrink from! She would suffer quite horribly, because she must be utterly without hope; even intrigue would be forbidden her--she has too much at stake. But no! as well now as any time. As well your brother as any man. He looks as if he would never _affiché_ a woman, he is not hot of head, he knows the world--and lives on the other side of it!”

“You are all wrong, Sarolta. Ranata is playing a game.”

“The game is fire,” replied the Princess dryly.

XV

After that Fessenden took his tea--he detested tea--every day in the Hungarian house. Sometimes the entire court was present, all conforming to the English custom approved by their princess, except the Obersthofmeisterin, who consumed glass after glass of iced coffee, to the secret envy of the rest. Sometimes only the younger ladies-in-waiting were present besides the Archduchess and Alexandra; but even at dinner, to which he was frequently invited, Fessenden rarely had a word alone with Ranata. Twice he had ridden with the court to the summit of the Schwabenberg in the early morning, but he had been obliged to content himself with observing the fine effect of flaming hair among the sweeping branches of the acacia.

If Fessenden had not long since come to the conclusion that it was a waste of man’s valuable time to puzzle over the idiosyncrasies of any woman, he would have wondered at the sudden change in the Archduchess’s tactics. She had dropped coquetry as abruptly as she had assumed it, and now treated him with a sisterly frankness which, in some respects, was a curious imitation of Alexandra’s. The truth was that Ranata had taken warning from an angry glint in her friend’s eye, although the subject of Fessenden had been mutually avoided. Moreover, Ranata had informed herself that the American’s friendship would doubtless be as valuable to the House of Hapsburg as his love, and far easier for her inexperienced self to manage. He had thrilled her unaccountably in the Chardash, and startled and fascinated her later by his momentary conquest of her will; but she had finally taken alarm, and when he arose in her thought she wrote a letter to Count von Königsegg, or demanded the company of her lively ladies-in-waiting. When she was alone in bed she sternly reviewed the Hungarian programme, and forced herself to plan for the subjugation of the Party of Independence. On this question she had much correspondence with the minister; for she had received more than one veiled command to let politics ostensibly alone while exercising the purely feminine forces of attraction to bind all parties in a common loyalty to the throne. This was not a difficult task for a beautiful and intelligent princess within the circle of her influence; but if a powerful band of enthusiastic Radicals chose to keep themselves far beyond the outer edge of that circle, how was she, hedged by every restriction, to cast her nets about them? She did not regard Fessenden’s suggestion as feasible--not for the present at least. If all else failed, however, she finally decided, with a secret preference for following his advice, that she would summon the most influential women of the aristocracy in secret conclave, and, appealing to their patriotism, ask them to come forth temporarily from their haughty exclusiveness and meet the women of the dangerous element within the neutral shades of the palace. She had discussed this plan with her mentor, and it had been agreed upon as a last resort.

The enthusiasm and curiosity she excited among the masses were sufficient to satisfy the most patriotic and feminine heart. Every day from four to five she drove abroad, taking invariably the same route; crossing the suspension-bridge and driving out the wide Andrássy _ut_ into the Stefenia _ut_ of the park. All Pest seemed to tumble into the streets and the footways of the bridge as she passed, and frequently there was cheering. Beloved as her father was in Vienna, his people showed him no further attention in public than a perfunctory salute; and although in Hungary the masses cheered him during his brief visits, it was much in the same manner as the American is enthusiastic over any spectacle that varies the monotony of business. But that the people of Budapest were not only genuinely delighted with this flower of the Hapsburgs, but pleased and flattered that she chose to live among them, was evident both by their spontaneous enthusiasm and its reflection in the press. In all but the Radical newspapers there was a daily chronicle of her doings, and gallant comment; the opposition had nothing to say in her disfavor, and was evidently unsuspicious of her motive in deserting Vienna for Budapest.

One morning, persuaded by Alexandra, she entered a shop for the first time in her life. It was a shop in the Vácri utcza, and she spent a delighted half-hour to the greater delight of the sordid soul that kept it. When she left it she was mobbed into her carriage by a throng that impeded the traffic. She passed through the ordeal with such a lack of condescension in her good-nature that even the women cheered her, and there were murmurs of “Rudolf!” among their “_Élyens!_” When driving past the waiting crowds in the street, instead of favoring her admirers with the usual fixed smile and stately bow of bored royalty, she inclined her head slowly, including many in one salutation, and sometimes smiling in a manner that seemed both spontaneous and personal.

And then, one other morning, accompanied only by the Princess Sarolta, Fessenden, and Alexandra, she visited the Hall of the Deputies, the Lower House of the Diet. The new Parliament building, that epitome of Venice on the brink of the Danube, was unfinished, and both houses of the Diet still met in the old buildings in the “Magnates’ Quarter.” Ranata insisted upon sitting quietly in the diplomats’ gallery for a time, and found much food for reflection. The magnates meet irregularly; the Deputies daily while Parliament is in session, and transact the business of the nation when not engaged in moving their kings and pawns a square further towards independence. One finds no type in Budapest, and these were men of many types. Few possessed the famed Hungarian beauty, and the majority looked like energetic business-men whose native fires were nicely balanced by determination. They were curiously unmonarchical in appearance and atmosphere; and the unenlightened stranger would have assumed without question that they were the working body of an aggressive republic. The ministry, striking-looking men, all of the Liberal party, sat in a semicircle below the desk of the President of the House, and followed the proceedings with evident cynicism.

The President, one of the few nobles in the Lower House, was lecturing the Party of Independence upon the inconvenient extreme to which it was carrying its policy of obstruction. He sat aloft, and the beautiful Magyar language rolled down, an impassioned yet monotonous torrent. The constant interruptions from the Extreme Left in nowise disturbed it. The “Young Kossuth party” acted much in the fashion of bad boys too big for the ferrule.

“They need Tom Reed,” muttered Fessenden.

“They interest me very much,” whispered Ranata. “I have never seen anything like them. Do they represent Hungary?”

“That is what they are here for.”

“Your House of Representatives--does it look more democratic?”

“Only when it has its coat off and its feet on the desk.”

“These men--why do they want William? Why do they want any king?”

“The great body are not extremists. They know that Hungary is not ready for independence--neither internally nor by her geographical position. No country is surrounded by so many enemies--who hate her for that obstinate individuality which has survived every reverse and threatens to engulf themselves. The Hungarians would make their own terms with William--and give him their help in smashing Russia.”

“Is this matter the talk of Europe?” asked the Archduchess sharply.

“Not of Europe, but of those who do the hard thinking.”

“How could William smash Russia?”

“He only needs the money.”

“Ah! He promised his grandfather on the old Kaiser’s death-bed that he would maintain friendly relations with Russia. It is a matter of sentiment with him.”

“Sentiment evaporates, and promises are nullified, when it comes to a question of self-protection.”

“Or ambition! Will he ever be able to get this money? The Reichstag will not vote it, and the Socialists become stronger daily. How can he get it?”

“Well--he might raise the embargo on certain American industries, and as a return favor they might advance him fifty million dollars or so.”

“You know that is one of the few things he would not dare do. He cannot afford to antagonise another party--he is as much of a politician as your Roosevelt.”

“Well, you see, success in a great war would bind all parties in a common approval.”

Ranata was a thorough European in the sinuousness of her methods; but she recalled the picturesque advice of Alexandra to push a fellow-diplomat into a corner and tell him “to speak out or get out.” She fixed her disconcerting eyes on Fessenden and asked deliberately, “Do you intend to give him this money?”

Fessenden was not to be nonplussed by methods direct or indirect. His sharp eyes met the strength of her gaze unmoved. “Can you keep a secret? Yes? If the time ever comes when our interests seem one, I shall let him have all the money he wants.”

“That is the vagueness of diplomacy.”

“I have no immediate intention of putting my hand in my pocket, if that is what you mean. Nor is the time ripe for him to strike.”

Ranata drew a long breath. To bridge an interval she asked, “Is it true--I mean in your personal knowledge--that the Balkan states would rally to him in case of a war with Russia--that they share the infatuated notion that he is destined to be the savior of eastern Europe--instead of ourselves!”