“Not come to my ball? Why not?”
“We never enter the palace.”
“But my ball has nothing to do with politics. I am not your sovereign. I have my father’s permission to live here this winter because my American friend and I are so tired of Vienna, and I am so fascinated by your city. I wish to enjoy Budapest, Úr Molnár. Is my winter to be poisoned by party feeling?—of which I know too little. How illogical, and how ungallant! You will come and bring your colleagues to-morrow night? It is to be the great night of my life, and I am sure you will not spoil it.”
“I? Ah!” Once more he braced himself. “I am afraid there will not be enough women to go round, your Royal Highness,” he said meaningly.
“That was clever. But”—she spoke very softly—“wait. I cannot do everything at once. I have an Obersthofmeisterin. Remember that you are far more your own master than I am mistress of my acts.”
As she finally dismissed the bewildered Obstructionist, she caught Fessenden’s eye. It was twinkling with appreciation of a fellow-man’s enslavement. Ranata saw in the twinkle approval of her manœuvres in a great cause, and responded to the new chord of sympathy with all a woman’s facile manufacture of subtle understandings with unconscious man.
“I feel somewhat of a Jesuit,” she said to him as they left the building. “But it is success or failure, and I shall not fail.”
“Your tactics are those of the man who wins. And I suppose you reason that men will fall in love with you anyhow—that one more or less doesn’t matter.”
“That is an idea!” said Ranata.