“And now,” she concludes, “you will dine to-night with Her Majesty at half-past seven.”
I start back in horror.
“Yes,” she laughs; “it is the best opportunity, because the Emperor is away and it will be very quiet—just a few of the ladies and gentlemen of the court; and it will be quite easy, you know. Her Majesty is so kind, so sympathetic—she knows how tired you must be—she will not expect you to be brilliant; but when there is a plunge to be made,” she pointed downwards as to an unfathomable abyss, “it is better to make it and get it over, isn’t it?”
“Will the Princess be there?” I ask with the calmness of despair.
“No, not to-night. She is very much excited and wanted to come and see you, but is to wait until to-morrow. She has been talking all day about your coming.”
I wonder dubiously in what aspect I present myself to the thoughts of my unknown pupil—whether pleasantly or otherwise.
On looking back, that first dinner at a royal table has in it many of the unstable elements of a dream, I might almost say of a nightmare. It passed confusedly through my mind as a series of impressions following each the other with such rapidity and lack of cohesion that only the Cubist or Futurist mind could hope to depict it adequately. An impression that my frock is not quite the right thing, that it is too English and not German enough—it was to be a “high” dress, said the Countess, as we parted, and mine was neckless while the other ladies were clothed right up to the ears and chin; further impressions that I am preternaturally dull and stupid, that the smile I attempt is obviously artificial, that I am an isolated speck of mind surrounded by an incomprehensible ocean of German babbling.
Before dinner I have been solemnly conducted by the Countess to the apartments of the Empress, wearing one long white kid glove, while the other is feverishly crumpled in my hand together with a fan, without which even in the coldest weather no properly equipped lady can, I learned, be considered fit to appear before royalty. An elderly footman shows us into a little ante-room furnished in brilliant yellow satin, and here we sit and wait, chatting in the desultory, half-hearted manner of people who expect every moment to be interrupted.
It is some ten minutes or so before a door leading into an inner apartment is opened and we are ushered in.
“You will kiss Her Majesty’s hand,” whispers the Countess with a reassuring smile as she passes on in front of me.