“Yes; but this is a business, alas, in which one’s Cousin Peter won’t go down. I’m very sorry to say we’ll have to attend in person.”
“Nonsense!” she repeated. “Attend in person! How can you think of such a thing? We’d be bored and fatigued to death. It will be unspeakable. Nothing but dull, stodgy, suffocating German pomposity and bad taste. Oh, je m’y connais! Red cloth, and military bands, and interminable banquets, and noise, and confusion, and speeches (oh, the speeches!), until you’re ready to drop. And besides, we’d be herded with a crowd of ninth-rate princelings and petty dukes, who smell of beer and cabbage and brilliantine. We’d be relegated to the fifth or sixth rank, behind people who are all of them really our inferiors. Do you suppose I mean to let myself be patronised by a lot of stupid Hohenzollerns and Grâtzhoffens? No, indeed! You can send your Cousin Peter.”
“Ah, my dear, if I were the Tsar of Russia!” laughed her husband. “Then I could send a present and a poor relation, and all would be well. But—you speak of ninth-rate princelings. A ninth-rate princeling like the Krol of Tchermnogoria must make act of presence in his proper skin. It’s de rigueur. There’s no getting out of it. We must go.”
“Well, you may go, if you like,” her Majesty declared. “As for me, I won’t. If you choose to go and be patronised and bored, and half killed by the fatigue, and half ruined by the expense, I suppose I can’t prevent you. But, if you want my opinion, I think it’s utter insane folly.”
And she re-absorbed herself in her letter, with the air of one who had been distracted for a moment by a frivolous and tiresome interruption.
The King did not press the matter that evening, but the next morning he mustered his courage, and returned to it.
“My dear,” he began, “I beg you to listen to me patiently for a moment, and not get angry. What I wish to say is really very important.”
“Well, what is it? What is it?” she enquired, with anticipatory weariness.
“It’s about going to Dresden. I—I want to assure you that I dislike the notion of going quite as much as you can. But it’s no question of choice. There are certain things one has to do, whether one will or not. I’m exceedingly sorry to have to insist, but we positively must reconcile ourselves to the sacrifice, and attend the wedding—both of us. It’s a necessity of our position. If we should stay away, it would be a breach of international good manners that people would never forgive us. We should be the scandal, the by-word, of the Courts of Europe. We’d give the direst offence in twenty different quarters. We really can’t afford to make enemies of half the royal families of the civilised world. You can’t imagine the unpleasantnesses, the complications, our absence would store up for us; the bad blood it would cause. We’d be put in the black list of our order, and snubbed, and embarrassed, and practically ostracised, for years to come. And you know whether we need friends. But the case is so obvious, it seems a waste of breath to argue it. You surely won’t let a mere little matter of temporary personal inconvenience get us into such an ocean of hot water. Come now—be reasonable, and say you will go.”
The Queen’s eyes were burning; her under-lip had swollen portentously; but she did not speak.