The War Lord had declared that he wouldn't have more of the "hideous baggage" (meaning Her Majesty's ladies) that "made his house a nightmare," and that the next Dame du Palais to be appointed was to be good-looking, or must wear a bell, so that he could keep out of her way. His Queen, who regards all women through the jaundiced lorgnette of jealousy, was in despair. In her mind's eye she saw the Schloss peopled with Pompadours, Du Barrys and Dianes de Poitiers.
The War Lord had instructed the Court Marshal to demand photographs of applicants for the vacant post, and Countess von Bassewitz's he considered the most promising. "Wire her to report to-morrow morning at eight," he ordered. She arrived while the War Lord was busy lecturing his Council of Ministers on international law, and Her Majesty saw the candidate first. She couldn't help admitting to herself that Ina was comely in the extreme, and that it would require a vast deal of intrigue to induce her husband not to appoint the young girl forthwith. Then a happy thought struck her. "You may remove your gloves," she said condescendingly.
Countess Ina blushed and grew pale in turn; conscious of her weak point, she was afraid it would work her undoing.
But, instead, Her Majesty smiled benignly upon those unlovely hands.
"His Majesty!" announced the valet de chambre.
"Be gloved, my child; hurry."
The War Lord didn't know what to make of it when "Dona" approved of his selection.
"She is mysteriously confiding," he said to his crony, Maxchen (the Prince of Fürstenberg). But he changed his mind when, a week or two later, he had induced Ina to take off her gloves in his presence.
The War Lord had instructed Bassewitz and Keller to treat Bertha "like a raw egg," saying: "Her income is bigger per minute than that of all you Prussian Junkers per annum"—a gratuitous slap, the more ungenerous since the old Kings of Prussia gobbled up a goodly part of their landed possessions, as Bismarck once pointed out to Frederick William IV.
Berlin pomp and circumstance! Three flags, paper flowers on lanterns, a much-worn red carpet leading from the spot where Bertha's saloon carriage was to draw up to the royal reception room in the station.