"English papers never meddle with things matrimonial, except when they reach the Divorce Court."
Miss Mitzi laughed.
"Well," she said, "this affair did not reach the Divorce Court, but it was scandalous enough. Still, my father would never have guessed our connexion with royalty, had not my mother when I was nine decided to send me to a certain high-class school, which could not be entered without protection. So mother wrote to aunt Kathi, whose daughter was being educated at that particular school."
I must have made a surprised face at the mention of the dancer's daughter, for Miss Mitzi added:
"Yes! the Archduke and aunt Kathi had two children, a boy and a girl, both older than I, the boy three years and the girl ten months. They were called Franz von Heidenbrunn and Augusta von Heidenbrunn. Their mother was Frau von Heidenbrunn, and their father was supposed to be a Graf von Heidenbrunn.
"I went to that school and made friends with Augusta. We soon became inseparable; nor did my father then object to our frequenting each other. By and by both families became acquainted, and father felt greatly pleased that an Archduke, although only under the incognito mask of a Count, should climb up into his modest apartment of the Karlsgasse. They—the Archduke and my father—became even friendly enough to collaborate in a ballet—it was called Fata Morgana—and I suspect that my aunt Kathi had a finger in the pie. However, what was bound to happen occurred when that ballet was performed. Up to that time my father had remained unaware of the relationship that existed between the two sisters. But on that particular evening somebody congratulated my father on having so influential a brother-in-law ... and, of course, the fat was in the fire.
"It is impossible to imagine my father's anger. That he should have been cheated, he, by his wife, in his own home! He forbade his door to my poor aunt and to her children, and if he did not act in the same way with the Archduke it was only because he had not the courage to do so. Yet the result was the same: the Archduke, too, ceased to visit us. And all our nice intercourse was over, save for Augusta and me, who remained friendly and became probably even friendlier than we had been before.
"Three years ago aunt Kathi died, and her children left Vienna for Salzburg...."
"Ah!" said I.