Anna was seated, a few days later, with her dearest friend, the Princess of Thurm, in a corner of the royal enclosure at Ascot.  For the first time since their arrival they found themselves alone.  From underneath her parasol the Princess looked at her friend curiously.

“Anna,” she said, “something has happened to you.”

“Perhaps, but explain yourself,” Anna replied composedly.

“It is so simple.  There you sit in a Doucet gown, perfection as ever, from the aigrette in your hat to those delicately pointed shoes.  You have been positively hunted by all the nicest men—­once or twice, indeed, I felt myself neglected—­and not a smile have I seen upon your lips.  You go about, looking just a little beyond everything.  What did you see, child, over the tops of the trees in the paddock, when Lord Wilton was trying so hard to entertain you?”

“An affair of moods, I imagine,” Anna declared.  “Somehow I don’t feel quite in the humour for Ascot to-day.  To be quite frank,” she went on, turning her head slowly, “I rather wonder that you do, Mildred.”

The Princess raised her eyebrows.

“Why not?  Everything, so far as I am concerned, is couleur de rose.  Madame Blanche declared yesterday that my complexion would last for twenty years.  I found a dozen of the most adorable hats in Paris.  The artist who designs my frocks was positively inspired the last time I sat to him.  I am going to see Maurice in a few weeks, and meanwhile I have several new flirtations which interest me amazingly.  As for you, my child, one would imagine that you had lost your taste for all frivolity.  You are as cold as granite.  Be careful, dear.  The men of to-day, in this country, at any rate, are spoilt.  Sometimes they are even uncourtier-like enough to accept a woman’s refusal.”

“Well,” Anna observed, smiling faintly, “even a lifetime at Court has not taught me to dissimulate.  I am heavy-hearted, Mildred.  You wondered what I was looking at when I gazed over those green trees under which all those happy people were walking.  I was looking out across the North Sea.  I was looking through Belgium to Paris.  I saw a vast curtain roll up, and everything beyond it was a blood-stained panorama.”

A shade rested for a moment on her companion’s fair face.  She shrugged her shoulders.

“We’ve known for a long time, dear, that it must come.”

“But all the same, in these last moments it is terrible,” Anna insisted.  “Seriously, Mildred, I wonder that I should feel it more than you.  You are absolutely English.  Your father is English, your mother is English.  It is only your husband that is Austrian.  You have lived in Austria only for seven years.  Has that been sufficient to destroy all your patriotism, all your love for your own country?”

The Princess made a little grimace.