It was a queer shabby little bedroom to shelter the august body of a
European personage like Prince Eugen of Posen. Curiously
enough, both Nella and her father, ardent democrats though they
were, had been somehow impressed by the royalty and importance
of the fever-stricken Prince - impressed as they had never been by
Aribert. They had both felt that here, under their care, was a
species of individuality quite new to them, and different from
anything they had previously encountered. Even the gestures and
tones of his delirium had an air of abrupt yet condescending
command - an imposing mixture of suavity and haughtiness. As for
Nella, she had been first struck by the beautiful 'E' over a crown on
the sleeves of his linen, and by the signet ring on his pale,
emaciated hand. After all, these trifling outward signs are at least
as effective as others of deeper but less obtrusive significance. The
Racksoles, too, duly marked the attitude of Prince Aribert to his
nephew: it was at once paternal and reverential; it disclosed clearly
that Prince Aribert continued, in spite of everything, to regard his
nephew as his sovereign lord and master, as a being surrounded by
a natural and inevitable pomp and awe. This attitude, at the
beginning, seemed false and unreal to the Americans; it seemed to
them to be assumed; but gradually they came to perceive that they
were mistaken, and that though America might have cast out 'the
monarchial superstition', nevertheless that 'superstition' had
vigorously survived in another part of the world.
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