"Madame Paillette certainly deserves the Croix d'Honneur for so excellent a bon-mot. As for Mademoiselle Nou-Nou, I do not myself admire her, but my brother Ludwig, when he was alive, paid intermittent tribute to her charms." He added: "He was killed in the charge by a fall with his horse in the Autumn Manoeuvres of last year, while the Emperor was being entertained by command at a shooting-party upon a forest property of my father's that is about fifty kilometres from Berlin."
CHAPTER X
A SUPERMAN
"Do tell what the Kaiser said when he heard of the accident!" came in the voice of Lady Beauvayse, pitched now in a high, nasal tone that was a danger-signal to those who knew her, like the mischievous twinkle in her beautiful eyes. "I guess he must have been real upset!"
"Ja, ja, gewiss," returned von Herrnung, slightly shrugging his broad, square shoulders. "Of course the Emperor was greatly grieved for my father's loss. But naturally the programme had to be carried out. There is another day's Imperial shooting; the business is concluded—very satisfactorily—and Seine Majestät takes leave..... But of course he sent to my mother a sympathetic message, which greatly consoled her. And his Chief Equerry, Baron von Wildenberg, represented him at my brother's funeral. And shortly afterwards he graciously conferred upon my father the Second Class of the Order Pour le Mérite."
"How nice! But what for?" demanded the downright American, with astonishment so genuine that Brayham strangled with suppressed chuckles, and the bearded mouth of Commander Courtley assumed the curve of a sly smile.
"What for?" exclaimed von Herrnung. He stiffened his big body arrogantly, reddening with evident annoyance, and thickly through his carefully-accentuated English the Teutonic consonants and gutturals began to crop. "Gnädige Gräfin, because that so coveted decoration is the reward of special service rendered to the Emperor. And my father in his-personal-sorrow-conquering that it upon the amusements of Imperial Majesty-might-not-intrude—had the noblest devotion and courage exhibited—in the opinion of the All-Highest."
"My land!" exclaimed Lady Beauvayse, stimulated by the undisguised enjoyment of Brayham, Courtley, and Franky, "if that don't take the team and waggon, with the yella dog underneath it, an' the hoss-fly sittin' on the near-wheel mule's left ear!" She added: "No wonder your Kaiser thinks himself the hub of this little old universe—being nourished from infancy on flapdoodle of that kind." She added, dropping the saw-edged artificial accent, and reverting to the agreeable, drawling tones familiar to her friends: "But, last fall, when King George and Queen Mary were allowing to spend the day with us at Foltlebarre Abbey, and see the Gobelins tapestries after Teniers that were restored by our great American dye-specialist, Charlotte B. Pendrill of New York—and I had a dud head with neuralgitis, and couldn't have bobbed a curtsey without screaming like peacocks before a wet spell—Lord Beauvayse just sent a respectful note of excuse over by fast car to the place in our county where their Majesties were spending a week-end, and got a kind, cosy little line by return, making an appointment for a more convenient day."
"Es mag wohl sein," said von Herrnung stiffly, repeating an apparently favourite phrase. "It may be so—in Great Britain. But in Germany the trivial happenings of ordinary existence are not permitted to interfere with the Imperial plans."
"Mustn't spoil Great Cæsar's shoot by letting a natural sorrow dim your eye, in case you're unexpectedly informed of a family bereavement," said Brayham to Lady Beauvayse. "So now you know what to expect in case the Kaiser should take it into his head to pop in on you at Foltlebarre somewhere about July."