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Rh He was silent. He had always known that her riches were great, but he had never realised them as fully as he now did when she spoke of rebuilding an entire town as she might have spoken of building a carriage.

'You would make a good prime minister,' she said, smiling; 'you have the knowledge of a specialist on so many subjects.'

At noon they served her a little plain breakfast of Danubian salbling, with Carlowitzer wine and fruit sent by the steward of Mohacs. She bade him join her in it.

'Had Egon himself been here he could not have done more for Idrac than you have done,' she said.

'Is this Prince Egon's wine?' he said abruptly, and on hearing that it was so, he set the glass down untasted.

She looked surprised, but she did not ask him his reason, for she divined it. There was an exaggeration in the unspoken hostility more like the days of Arthur and Lancelot than their own, but it did not displease her.

They were both little disposed to converse during their meal; after the dreary and terrible scenes they had been witness of, the atmosphere of life seems grave and dark even to those whom the calamity had not touched. The most