f you understands. A Prince cannot do such things."

Kasia threw up her hands.

"So we come back to the beginning of the circle!" she cried.

"Besides, my father would not permit it," added the Prince.

"Aren't you of age?"

"Yes--but he is the head of the family. He would have me brought
home--from the end of the world, if necessary--and then I should be
confined. Even my elder brother is sometimes confined--separated from
his wife, from his children, permitted to see no one."

"Poor Prince!" said Kasia. "So you are a slave, like the rest of
us--rather worse than the rest of us, indeed! Is there _nothing_ you can
do?"

"Very few things," said the Prince, beginning really to pity himself.
"You see, there is always my family to consider--nothing must be done to
injure its position or to make it less popular. Even my father very
often may not say what he thinks or do what he wishes."

"So he is a slave, too!"

"Yes, in a way. And it grows worse and worse. Often, in private, he
laments the old days when a King was really a King, who was venerated
and whose word was law. He grows very angry that at each election there
are more socialists. He says that the only hope for the country is in a
great war: it is for that he prepares."

"How would a great war help?"

"Oh, in face of the common danger, our people would forget their
differences, for they all love their Fatherland; they would fight
shoulder to shoulder. And then, when it was over, they would all be mad
with joy over the victory, and there would be new provinces to add to
Germany, and an immense tax levied on our enemy to pay the expenses of
the war, so that our own people would not have to bear that burden. It
would all be just as it was after the war with France, when every German
was filled with patriotism, and when Germany for the first time became
one country. Our house would again be well-beloved, its authority
unquestioned."

"But suppose you are defeated?"

"We shall not be defeated," said the Prince, calmly. "There is no nation
in the world which Germany could not defeat--except, perhaps, the United
States. But we shall not go to war with the United States. England will
be our foe, and you will see her tumble to pieces like a house of cards.
She is but an empty shell."

Kasia sat for a moment considering all this. If this was really what was
in the Kaiser's mind--and she could scarcely doubt it--it was foolish to
suppose that he would consent