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.