The wagging of unkind tongues, of course, had before now pealed at her that the Kaiser’s piety towards his mother was not deserving of any especial monument; but now she dismissed all these insensate rumours. With what clenching of the mailed fist did he determine that never should trouble arise between his fatherland and his motherland! How sure a guarantee was that of the peace of a world that was so often only too prone to take a prejudiced view of him! And perhaps even she to-night had been given the opportunity of warning him, through the medium of his Ambassador, that England was sorely troubled about the unrest in the Emerald Isle. Perhaps the Ambassador, in his letter to-morrow, would mention the source of his information, and then, who knew but that when the Kaiser visited London, in the autumn or the winter, the “remedy” of which His Excellency had spoken might comprise in its ingredients not only a mere introduction, but even a visit here? What would she not do to have the Emperor at her table? There was nothing in the world she would not do. And clearly, to her mind, slightly inebriated with success, so stupendous a project was not absolutely unthinkable.
Her last guests on their departure, leaving her free to go to some further diversion which should shorten the hours of the night by lengthening them, found her a little distracted, for already she was moving freely in Imperial circles. It was not only those sumptuous projects that enthralled her, there was below them some call of the blood evoked by German talk, German guests, German singing and music. All that reinforced the perennial pull of her German marriage, so too did the thought of her three children, each three-quarters of them German, who had been permitted to come downstairs in their dressing-gowns and kiss the Princess’s hand when she made her departure.
It had been the prettiest scene: there were the three little boys, bright-eyed from the flush of their early sleep, thinking it an immense treat to be allowed to come down in the middle of the night and see a real Princess, who had been eating her good dinner with Mummie. Careful instructions had been issued to them: indeed, the whole scene had been rehearsed. They were to cling to their mother’s silver-mail skirt on their first appearance, like a sort of augmented Holy Family, and then shyly advance with infantine bows and kissings of the Princess’s plump hand. It had all gone off excellently: one had said, “Good-night, Princess,” and bobbed; the next had said, “Gute Nacht, Prinzessin,” and the smallest had said “Gute night, your Rollighness.” Upon which Her Rollighness had picked them up and kissed them soundly, and said, “Good-night, you little darlings. Schlafen Sic wohl.”... And what if soon the Emperor himself did the same sort of thing? He loved domesticity, she was told, and the family life, and set his imperial face against modern ways.... Lady Gurtner wondered if she could ever have the strength of mind to drop Helen Grote, up to whom she had so long and so diligently climbed. Only a few minutes before her ears had tingled with delight at the sound of her own Christian name in the mouth of Lady Grote. Now in her ecstatic flights into the future she foresaw a time when she might pass sentence on the fact of Helen giving Kuhlmann “a lift.” But she was, on reflection, too much in the lift herself to object to the presence of other people there. Up they all went, and got out at their various floors! For a moment some echo of her earlier days, when she used to wait for buses at street corners, came back to her, and she could almost hear somebody call out, ’Igher up there.” She felt implicitly inclined to obey.
Some rather urgent telephone-call had summoned the little London fog to his business room before her last guest had left, and she could hear his voice talking in German with telephone pauses and reiterated “Hullos!” It was not wise to interrupt him when there was business going on; he was weaned from all other interests if finance claimed him, and it could be nothing but finance of an urgent kind that made him so loquacious at this hour of the night. So she called up her motor and drove off, leaving word that she would be back again in a couple of hours. Only the butler or a footman and her maid would have to sit up, for, kind-hearted woman as she was, she always gave these considerate directions, for which her servants rather despised her. But she knew nothing whatever about that, and a perfectly trained man who saw her into the motor merely murmured, “Thank you, my lady,” in a voice that gave her a thrill of complacency in suggesting how kind and thoughtful she was.
She returned towards three in the morning, having had a very pleasant time at a couple of houses, and her inherent vulgarity had sunned itself and expanded its wings as she represented her party as being quite a small impromptu affair, and allowed the items of it to be almost dragged out of her.... Yes, Kuhlmann had dined, and, like an angel, had sung to them afterwards, and Saalfeld had dined, and had found his baton in his coat pocket, and had conducted his new symphonic poem. And, yes, Nijinski had come and given them “Endymion.”... Helen Grote was there, and had looked quite lovely; it was really unkind of her to make every other woman look ill-dressed and dowdy, but, of course, she couldn’t help it. The Princess seemed to have enjoyed it: she stopped till after twelve, and was delicious to the children....
It was rather a surprise to Aline to be told on her return that Sir Hermann was still up and wished to see her. She bent her tall head to receive the kiss with which he always welcomed her after the shortest absence, and, as usual, spoke German to him.
“What is it?” she asked. “You look serious. Oh, don’t be serious, for I am having such a lovely time.”
“I have had very disquieting news from Berlin,” said he. “A cypher telegram came to the office, which they decoded and sent me. I had it repeated to make sure.”
Her mind instantly went back to the Emperor’s visit, and the glories that might shine on her.
“Not about the Emperor?” she asked. “He’s not ill, is he?”