ith the sort
of men who drifted to New York from all parts of the nation as
naturally as pilgrims went to Mecca. If it was your fate to be a
politician, Washington, of course, was the goal, but that, in his
opinion, was merely moving from a little small-town to a big one, and
he thanked his stars he did not have to live in a place where there was
nothing but politics and society. In New York you had only to help
yourself to any phase of life you wanted.

Mary smiled as she remembered the contemptuous remark of another New
York convert: "Oh, Washington is merely an island outside of New York,"
and she fell to wondering what New York would have been like if it had
not been fed so persistently by those streams of eager and ambitious
brains debouching into it from every part of a by no means unambitious
and negligible commonwealth. Another island, probably. Certainly it
was the most exhilarating place in the world today, with its atmosphere
of invincible security and prosperity, its surging tides of life. No
wonder it was impossible for the intensive New Yorker to realize that
four thousand miles away a greater world was falling to ruin.

She told him something of the old political life of Vienna, continually
agitated by some "Balkan Question"; of the general dislike of the
"Heir," whose violent death at Sarajevo had been the death knell of
European peace; apprehensions of the day when he should ascend the
throne, for he was intensely clerical and reactionary. If he had
survived until the old Emperor's death, and there had been no war, it
was doubtful if there would not have been a "palace revolution" within
six months of his succession. It was also possible that the people
would have had their revolution, for they were becoming enlightened and
discontented, and powerful men in the highest offices of the Government
were in sympathy with them.

"I suppose you mean this Prince Hohenhauer for one," said Clavering.

"Hohenhauer believed that every throne in Europe would be overturned
before the middle of the twentieth century, and that it was the part of
wise leaders to prepare not only themselves but the people for a
republican form of government. He had the greatest admiration for the
principles on which this Republic was founded, and said that Europe was
to be congratulated that we had made the mistakes for her to avoid.
Much as the rest of the world congratulates itself that Bolshevism was
tried out in Russia an