"That's the ladies'—the Baroness and the Mistress of the Robes—business, of course. She sees the fashion through their eyes and, when Auntie is ill-dressed, the blame really attaches to her women. One morning Auntie called me in and said: 'Bertha, what do you think of my dinner toilet for to-night?'
"The gown on the mannequin was of light red silk with white flounces and blue train, set off by rosebuds."
"Kakadoo!" laughed Barbara.
"That's how it struck me," said Bertha. "But there stood the Baroness pleased as Punch about the new 'creation,' and certainly expected me to say something nice. I was in despair, but Auntie Majesty came to my rescue. 'It's quite impossible,' she said, 'isn't it? Tell Schwertfeger and Moeller——'
"She did not finish, but took up the Alnumach de Gotha lying on the dressing-table. 'I thought so—Wilhelmina's colours. If Wilhelm had seen me in this, he would have said: "You are rushing things, Dona. Wait till we annex Holland."' Then she turned to the Baroness: 'Have it unripped at once. The silks shall be used any way except in this absurd combination. I will wear white this evening.'"
"To bed at once; enough for to-night," ordered Frau Martha, turning back the clothes on Barbara's bed.
CHAPTER XXI
THROTTLING BAVARIA
The Etiquette of Dress—Bülow in a Fix—That "Place in the Sun"—"That Idiot Bismarck"—Prussianize the British Empire
In the grandchamber where Bismarck sat so long enthroned and Caprivi, the general "commanded to the office," as he might have been ordered to occupy a bastion, spent troublesome years; at the desk where Prince Hohenlohe's thoughtful face shone between colossal oil-lamps; in the very chair where the Iron One swore lustily at petty kings, sat Bernhard von Bülow, Chancellor and Major-General.