“Yes, that hot thing round your face must be very trying.  Now if you were not so vain—­what does a rash matter when only women are present?  Well, well, I will not tease you.  Do you know many of the Kunitzers?  Do you know the Levisohns well?”

“Oh,” sighed Priscilla, laying her distracted head against the cushions and shutting her eyes, “who are they?”

“Who are they?  Who are the Levisohns?  But dearest Fraeulein if you know Kunitz you must know the Levisohns.  Why, the Levisohns are Kunitz.  They are more important far than the Grand Duke.  They lend to it, and they lead it.  You must know their magnificent shop at the corner of the Heiligengeiststrasse?  Perhaps,” she added, with a glance at the Princess’s shabby serge gown, “you have not met them socially, but you must know the magnificent shop.  We visit.”

“Do you?” said Priscilla wearily, as the mother paused.

“And you know her story, of course?”

“Oh, oh,” sighed Priscilla, turning her head from side to side on the cushions, vainly seeking peace.

“It is hardly a story for the ears of Fraeuleins.”

“Please don’t tell it, then.”

“No, I will not.  It is not for Fraeuleins.  But one still sees she must have been a handsome woman.  And he, Levisohn, was clever enough to see his way to Court favour.  The Grand Duke—­”

“I don’t think I care to hear about the Levisohns,” said Priscilla, sitting up suddenly and speaking with great distinctness.  “Gossip is a thing I detest.  None shall be talked in my presence.”

“Hoity-toity,” said the astonished mother; and it will easily be believed that no one had ever said hoity-toity to Priscilla before.

She turned scarlet under her veil.  For a moment she sat with flashing eyes, and the hand lying in her lap twitched convulsively.  Is it possible she was thinking of giving the comfortable mother that admonition which the policeman had so narrowly escaped?  I know not what would have happened if the merry goddess, seeing things rushing to this dreadful climax, had not stopped the train in the nick of time at a wayside station and caused a breathless lady, pushing parcels before her, to clamber in.  The mother’s surprised stare was of necessity diverted to the new-comer.  A parcel thrust into Priscilla’s hands brought her back of necessity to her senses.

“Danke, Danke,” cried the breathless lady, though no help had been offered; and hoisting herself in she wished both her fellow-passengers a boisterous good evening.  The lady, evidently an able person, arranged her parcels swiftly and neatly in the racks, pulled up the windows, slammed the ventilators, stripped off her cloak, flung back her veil, and sitting down with a sigh of vast depth and length stared steadily for five minutes without wavering at the other two.  At the end of that time she and the mother began, as with a common impulse, to talk.  And at the