'That is sheer perversity——'

'How am I perverse? I know the world very well, and I know that no one is necessary to it, unless it be Herr von Bismarck.'

'I do not see what Herr von Bismarck has to do with your going back to your natural manner of life,' said the Princess, severely, who abhorred any sort of levity in regard to the mighty minister who had destroyed the Lilienhöhe princes one fine morning, as indifferently as a boy plucks down a cranberry bough. 'In summer, or even autumn, Hohenszalras is endurable, but in winter it is—hyperborean—even you must grant that. One might as well be jammed in a ship, amidst icebergs, in the midst of a frozen sea.'

'And you were born on the Elbe, oh fie! But indeed, my dearest aunt, I like the frozen sea. The white months have no terrors for me. What you call, and what calls itself, the great world is far more narrow than the Iselthal. Here one's fancies, at least, can fly high as the eagles do; in the world who can rise out of the hot-house air of the salons, and see beyond the doings of one's friends and foes?'

'Surely one's own friends and foes—people like oneself, in a word—must be as interesting as Hans, and Peter, and Katte, and Grethel, with their crampons or their milkpails,' said the Princess, with impatience. 'Besides, surely in the world there are political movement, influence, interests.'

'Oh, intrigue?—as useful as Mme. de Laballe's or Mme. de Longueville's? No! I do not believe there is even that in our time, when even diplomacy itself is fast becoming a mere automatic factor in a world that is governed by newspapers, and which has changed the tyranny of wits for the tyranny of crowds. The time is gone by when a "Coterie of Countesses" could change ministries, if they ever did do so outside the novels of Disraeli. Drawing-room cabals may still do some mischief perhaps, but they can do no good. Sometimes, indeed, I think that what is called Government everywhere is nothing but a gigantic mischief-making and place-seeking. The State is everywhere too like a mother who sweeps her doorstep diligently, and scolds the neighbours, while her child scalds itself to death unseen within.'

'In the world,' interrupted the Princess oppositely, 'you might persuade them that the sweeping of doorsteps is not sufficient——'

'I prefer to keep my own house in order. It is quite enough occupation,' said the Countess Wanda, with a smile. 'Dear aunt, here amongst my own folks I can do some real good, I have some tangible influence, I can feel that my life is not altogether spent in vain. Why should I exchange these simple and solid satisfactions, for the frivolities and the inanities of a life of pleasure which would not even please me?'

'You are very hard to please, I know,' retorted the Princess. 'But say what you will, it becomes ridiculous for a person of your age, your great position, and your personal beauty, to immure yourself eternally in what is virtually no better than confinement to a fortress!'

'A court is more of a prison to me,' said Wanda von Szalras. 'I know both lives, and I prefer this life. As for my being very hard to please, I think I was very gay and mirthful before Bela's death. Since then all the earth has grown grey for me.'