"The person who did change was the Grand Duke Rudolph. Not that he ever ceased to treat me with the most unwearying attention, poor man! But after a year, when he had quite realized that his innocent little scheme was not working, and never would work, and that I should never be anything more to him than I had said, he became melancholy and spent most of his time indoors, Henceforth he was known at Lautenburg as 'Rudolph the Silent.'
"Worse than that, he was out of favour with the Kaiser. William II. likes to think himself a kind of Louis XIV. He does not like German princes who don't haunt Berlin and accuses them of separatism. Now Rudolph has ceased to go to Court altogether.
"He disliked seeing anybody, even at Lautenburg. The 7th Hussars had to get on as best they could without their colonel. He spent half his day, and nights in the library, studying works on mineralogy, his favourite science. It was, in fact, occupying his whole time when Baron von Boose came upon the scene.
"Melusine knew this Boose, the mention of whose name made you start. There never was a worse bridge-player—was there, Melusine? He only knew ordinary bridge. I had asked the Grand Duke to lend him to us to make a fourth, but he was so stupid and disagreeable that I was soon only too glad to send him back to his beloved books.
"He was very learned. That much at least must be said for him. For at thirty-two, though only a lieutenant in the Engineers, he was professor of topography at the Kriegs Academie. His book the 'Geotectonics of the Hanoverian Plain,' is a standard European work. At Berlin one day he assaulted a major who had asserted that there were rocks of quaternary origin in the Harz. Rudolph admired his work and went before the court-martial to give evidence on his behalf. Thanks largely to his intervention, Boose got off with sixty days' solitary confinement in a fortress. When his time was up my husband secured his appointment to the 3rd Battalion of Engineers at Lautenburg.
"In the spring of 1911 I went to Russia, to spend Easter with Papa. It was while I was there that I received a letter, which I ought to have shown you, from the Grand Duke. He told me that the Kaiser had summoned him to Berlin, and asked him whether he was prepared to use his scientific knowledge in the service of the Empire. Exploration had just proved the existence of immense mineral wealth in the Cameroons. It was necessary to confirm this discovery, and also ascertain as discreetly as possible the mineral resources of the neighbouring territories, so that the question of Germany's interest in annexing them might be considered. I'm sorry to say, my friend, that the territories in question form that part of the Congo which France ceded to Germany by the treaty of 1912.
"So Rudolph was going off to Africa with Boose. With a sorry pretence of indifference he made his excuses for leaving Europe without waiting for my return, pleading the urgency of the imperial orders. He added that if he allowed himself to take such a course, it was only because he was certain that his absence would make no difference to the normal course of my existence. In that my poor friend was woefully wrong.
"Letters from him reached me from Paris, Bordeaux, and Saint-Louis in Senegal. From the Congo itself came the two or three which I have shown you. Then came an interval, rather a long interval, and one day my brother-in-law, Frederick-Augustus, arrived at Lautenburg, bringing the sad news that the Grand Duke had had sunstroke, and died at Sangha, almost at the end of his journey. My name had been the last on his lips.
"Melusine will tell you how I mourned for Rudolph, and not indeed as I should mourn for Taras-Bulba, were he to die tomorrow, for I have never done that horse a wrong. But though I was always frank and loyal to Rudolph, I could not get rid of the feeling that in some way I was to blame for his death.
"As a funeral was impossible, a magnificent service was held in memory of him who rests under the sun-baked clay of Africa. The Emperor and Empress and all the German princes were present. The red Hussars of Lautenburg, with crêpe on their swords, rendered the last honours, and their uniforms during the service made me think sadly of the poor red Hussar of the Peterhof who danced so badly but was so kind.