The Princess stirred the muddy coffee in the chipped earthenware cup, and then sipped it thoughtfully, sipped it again, and made a face.

“You see my breakfast,” she said, and then laughed, as if the shabby brass tray were a part of the train of amusing circumstances.  “The porter’s wife went and got it at some dirty little cafe,” she added.

“How dreadful!” exclaimed the Baroness, with more real sympathy in her voice than she had yet shown.

“I assure you,” the Princess answered serenely, “that I am glad to have any coffee at all.  I always told poor dear Paolo that it would come to this.”

She swallowed the rest of the coffee with a grimace. and set down the cup.  Then, with the most natural gesture in the world, she pushed the tray a little way across the inlaid table, towards the Baroness, as she would have pushed it towards her maid, and as if she wished the thing taken away.  She did it merely from force of habit, no doubt.

Baroness Volterra understood well enough, and for a moment she affected not to see.  The Princess had the blood of Polish kings in her veins, mingled with that of several mediatized princes, but that was no reason why she should treat a friend like a servant; especially as the friend’s husband practically owned the palace and its contents, and had lent the money with which the high and mighty lady and her son had finally ruined themselves.  Yet so overpowering is the moral domination of the born aristocrat over the born snob, that the Baroness changed her mind, and humbly took the obnoxious tray away and set it down on another table near the door.

“Thank you so much,” said the Princess graciously.  “It smells, you know.”

“Of course,” answered the Baroness.  “It is not coffee at all!  It is made of chicory and acorns.”

“I do not know what it is made of,” said the Princess, without interest, “but it has an atrociously bad smell, and it has made a green stain on my handkerchief.”

She looked at the bit of transparently fine linen with which she had touched her lips, and threw it under the table.

“And Sabina?” began the Baroness.  “What shall you do with her?”

“I wish I knew!  You see, my daughter-in-law has a little place somewhere in the Maremma.  It is an awful hole, I believe, and very unhealthy, but we shall have to stay there for a few days.  Then I shall go to Poland and see my brother.  I am sure he can arrange everything at once, and we shall come back to Rome in the autumn, of course, just as usual.  Sassi told me only last week that two or three millions would be enough.  And what is that?  My brother is so rich!”

The stout Princess shrugged her shoulders carelessly, as if a few millions of francs more or less could really not be such a great matter.  Somebody had always found money for her to spend, and there was no reason why obliging persons should not continue to do the same.  The Baroness showed no surprise, but wondered whether the Princess might not have to lunch, and dine too, on some nauseous little mess brought to her on a battered brass tray.  It was quite possible that she might not find five francs in her purse; it was equally possible that she might find five thousand; the only thing quite sure was that she had not taken the trouble to look, and did not care a straw.