"I compel it!" cried the Emperor, pale with rage, his eyes flashing as he spoke. "She shall remain! Go to her at once – make your peace with her in any way you can – and appear to-night with her at the theatre."
"But I fear it is impossible. I – "
"Have you not heard me?" interrupted the Emperor, disregarding his son's protests. And as I discreetly withdrew I heard the Kaiser add: "Cannot you, of our House of Hohenzollern, see that we cannot afford to allow Cilli to leave us? The present state of the public mind is not encouraging, much as I regret it. Remember Frederick August's position when that madcap Luisa of Tuscany ran away with the French tutor Giron. Now return to Marmor without delay and do as I bid."
"I know Cilli. She will not be appeased. Of that I am convinced," declared the young man.
"It is my will – the will of the Emperor," were the last words I heard, spoken in that hard, intense voice I knew so well. "Tell your wife so. And do not see that black-haired Englishwoman again. I had a full report from the Engadine a fortnight ago, and this contretemps is only what I have expected. It is disgraceful! When will you learn reason?"
Ten minutes later I was seated beside the Crown-Prince in the car on our way to Potsdam.
On the road, driving recklessly as I sat by his side, he laughed lightly as he turned to me, saying:
"What an infernal worry women really are – aren't they, Heltzendorff – more especially if one is an Imperial Prince! Even though one is a Hohenzollern one cannot escape trouble!"
How the conjugal relations were resumed I know not. All I know is that I attended their Imperial Highnesses to the Lessing Theatre, where, in the Royal box, the Kaiser – ever eager to stifle the shortcomings of the Hohenzollerns – sat with us, though according to his engagements he should have been on his way to Düsseldorf for a great review on the morrow. But such public display allayed all rumour of his son's domestic infelicity, and both Emperor and Kronprinz smiled benignly upon the people.
Early next day the Crown-Prince summoned me, in confidence, and an hour later I left on a secret mission to a certain lady whom I may call Miss Lilian Greyford – as it is not fair in certain cases in these exposures to mention actual names – daughter of an English county gentleman, who was staying at the "Kulm" at St. Moritz.
Twenty-four hours afterwards I managed to see the winter-sports young lady alone in the hotel, and gave her a verbal message, together with a little package from His Imperial Highness, which, when she opened it, I found contained a souvenir in the shape of an artistic emerald pendant. With it were some scribbled lines. The girl – she was not much more than twenty – read them eagerly, and burst into a torrent of tears.
Ah! my dear Le Queux, as you yourself know from your own observations, there are as many broken hearts beating beneath the corsets of ladies-in-waiting and maids-of-honour, as there are among that frantic feminine crowd striving to enter the magic circle of the Royal entourage or the women of the workaday world who pass up Unter-den-Linden on a Sunday.
Phew! What a world of fevered artificiality revolves around a throne!
Very soon after this incident – namely, in the early days of 1912 – I found myself, as the personal-adjutant of His Imperial Highness the Crown-Prince, involved in a very strange, even inexplicable, affair.
How shall I explain it? Well, the drama opened in the Emperor's Palace in Berlin on New Year's night, 1912, when, as usual, a Grand Court reception was held.
The scene was one which we who revolve around the throne know so well. Court gowns, nodding plumes, gay uniforms, and glittering decorations – a vicious, tinselled, gossip-loving little world which with devilish intent sows seeds of dark suspicion or struggles for the Kaiser's favour.
In the famous White Salon, with its ceiling gaudily emblazoned with the arms of the Hohenzollerns as Burgraves, Electors, Kings, Emperors, and what-not, its walls of coloured marble and gilded bronze, and its fine statues of the Prussian rulers, we had all assembled and were waiting the entrance of the Emperor.
Kiderlen-Waechter – the Foreign Secretary – was standing near me, chatting with Von Jagow, slim, dark-haired and spruce. The latter, who was serving as German Ambassador in Rome, happened to be in Berlin on leave, and the pair were laughing merrily with a handsome black-haired woman whom I recognized as the Baroness Bertieri, wife of the Italian Ambassador.
Philip Eulenburg, one of the Emperor's personal friends (by the way, author, with Von Moltke, of the Kaiser's much-advertised "Song to Ægir" – a fact not generally known), approached me and began to chat, recalling a side-splitting incident that had occurred a few days before at Kiel, whither I had been with the Crown-Prince to open a new bridge. Oh, those infernal statues and bridges!
Of a sudden the tap of the Chamberlain's stick was heard thrice, the gold-and-white doors instantly fell open, and the Emperor, his decorations gleaming beneath the myriad lights, smilingly entered with his waddling consort, the Crown-Prince, and their brilliant suite.
All of us bowed low in homage, but as we did so I saw the shrewd eyes of the All-Highest One, which nothing escapes, fixed upon a woman who stood close to my elbow. As he fixed his fierce gaze upon her I saw, knowing that glance as I did, that it spoke volumes. Hitherto I had not noticed the lady, for she was probably one of those unimportant persons who are commanded to a Grand Court, wives and daughters of military nobodies, of whom we at the Palace never took the trouble to inquire so long as their gilt command-cards, issued by the Grand Chamberlain, were in proper order.
That slight contraction of the Emperor's eyebrows caused me to ponder deeply, for, knowing him so intimately, I saw that he was intensely annoyed.
For what reason? I was much mystified.
Naturally I turned to glance at the woman whose presence had so irritated him. She was fair-haired, blue-eyed, petite and pretty. Her age was about twenty-five, and she was extremely good-looking. Beside her stood a big, fair-haired giant in the uniform of a captain of the First Regiment of the Hussars of the Guard, of which the Crown-Prince was Colonel-in-Chief.
Within a quarter of an hour I discovered that the officer was Count Georg von Leutenberg, and that his pretty wife, whom he had married two years before, was the eldest daughter of an English financier who had been created a Baron by your rule-of-thumb politicians.
"Pretty woman, eh?" lisped Eulenburg in my ear, for he had noticed her, and he was assuredly the best judge of a pretty face in all Berlin.
Next day, just before noon, on entering the Crown-Prince's private cabinet, I found "Willie" in the uniform of the 2nd Grenadiers, apparently awaiting me in that cosy apartment, which is crammed with effigies, statuettes, and relics of the great Napoleon, whom he worships just as the War Lord reveres his famous ancestor Frederick the Great.
"Sit down, Heltzendorff," said his Elegant Highness, waving his white, well-manicured hand to a chair near by, and puffing at his cigarette. "It is really pleasant to have an hour's rest!" he laughed, for he seemed in merry mood that day. "Look here! As you know, after the little affair with the Crown-Princess I trust to your absolute discretion. Do you happen to know Count Georg von Leutenberg, of the Hussars of the Guard?"
"By sight only," was my reply. Mention of that name caused me to wonder.
"He is a very good fellow, I understand. Do you know his wife – a pretty little Englishwoman?"
"Unfortunately, I have not that pleasure."
"Neither have I, Heltzendorff," laughed the Prince, with a queer look in those slant-set eyes which appear so strangely goggly sometimes. "But I soon shall know her, I expect. In that direction I want your assistance."
"I am yours for your Highness to command," I replied, puzzled to know what was in progress. After a few seconds of silence the Crown-Prince suddenly exclaimed:
"So good is the report of Von Leutenberg that has reached the Emperor that – though he is as yet