295

XX AFTER THE CURTAIN WENT DOWN 298

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

"WHO IS THAT GIRL?" ASKED COUNT VON
BREITSTEIN _Frontispiece_

FACING
PAGE

SHE LOST HER SCANT FOOTHOLD, SLIPPED,
TRIED TO HOLD ON, FAILED, AND SLID
DOWN THE ROCK 50

"LET THE LAW DEAL WITH THE MADMAN; IT
IS MY WILL" 128

"NEVER!" SHE EXCLAIMED. "IT'S AN INSULT" 194

AT SIGHT OF HER THE EMPEROR STOPPED ON
THE THRESHOLD 292

"WE SHALL NEVER BE OLD, FOR WE LOVE
EACH OTHER," SAID THE EMPEROR 300

THE PRINCESS VIRGINIA

CHAPTER I

WHEN THE NEWS CAME

"No," said the Princess. "No. I'm--_dashed_ if I do."

"My darling child!" exclaimed the Grand Duchess. "You're impossible.
If any one should hear you!"

"It's he who's impossible," the Princess amended. "I'm just trying to
show you--"

"Or to shock me. You are _so_ like your grandmother."

"That's the best compliment any one can give me, which is lucky, as
it's given so often," laughed the Princess. "Dear, adorable Virginia!"
She cuddled into the pink hollow of her hand the pearl-framed ivory
miniature of a beautiful, smiling girl, which always hung from a thin
gold chain around her neck. "They shouldn't have named me after you,
should they, if they hadn't wanted me to be like you?"

"It was partly a question of money, dear," sighed the Grand Duchess.
"If my mother hadn't left a legacy to my first daughter only on
consideration that her own extremely American name of Virginia should
be perpetuated--"

"It was a delicious way of being patriotic. I'm glad she did it. I
love being the only Royal Princess with American blood in my veins and
an American name on my handkerchiefs. Do you believe for an instant
that if Grandmother Virginia were alive, she would let Granddaughter
Virginia marry Prince Henri de Touraine?"

"I don't see why not," said the Grand Duchess. "She wasn't too
patriotic to marry an English Duke, and startle London as the first
American Duchess. Heavens, the things she used to do, if one could
believe half the wild stories my father's sister told me in warning!
And as for my father, though a _mos