“Not that I know of. Why do you ask?”
“Because the Ambassador told me he was coming to England in the autumn or the winter. Oh, I forgot. He told me not to mention it, but my telling you is nothing. Oh, Hermann, he was so surprised I didn’t know him, and said he must remedy that.”
He turned quickly to her.
“What?” he said. “The Emperor is coming to England? Tell me at once all His Excellency said. What was his attitude, his outlook? You are not at your party now, dearest. You are in my office, and it is business.”
He heard her delighted account of it all, gnawing his nails as he listened, a habit which was ineradicable when he was interested. He never did such a thing at Aline’s dinner-parties, because he was not really interested. Aline’s parties were a diversion, like lawn-tennis, which he played in his braces.
“Coming to England?” he repeated. “And wanting to know about Ireland? Why should he want to know about Ireland? What did you say?”
“Just what I have told you, liebster. You do not listen. And when the Emperor——”
“Repeat it,” he said, interrupting.
He took a turn up and down the room while this was going on, his feet noiseless on the thick silk Persian carpet, his face reflected at various angles in the four priceless Louis XVI. mirrors, and at each step some fresh aspect of him was silently telegraphed from one to another. Sometimes he looked like a grotesque, malevolent ape, at other angles he looked like a moustached Napoleon.
“It is very disquieting,” he said at length. “Austria has sent a note to Serbia, on the subject of the murder of the Archduke, which Serbia cannot accept. That, of course, everybody knew yesterday. But now comes what nobody in this country knows, and what I heard from Berlin to-night. Germany is secretly mobilizing. I doubt really if it is known there: they talk of autumn manœuvres. But it is more than autumn manœuvres, it is mobilization, and I believe it means war. Not one word of this to anybody, Aline. You understand me: not one word, one hint.”