“I’m not going through any of that nonsense,” she exclaimed. “Does he think I intend to make a Wild West show of myself? If he does, he’s mistaken. I’ll proceed right up to the Emperor and shake hands with him, and if he doesn’t like it he can lump it. You translate that to him, Mr. Tremorne.”
I intimated respectfully to the young woman that Court etiquette was Court etiquette, and that everything would be much more simple if we fell in with the ways of the country. This marching and counter-marching was no more absurd than our own way of shaking hands, or the Pacific Island method of salutation by rubbing noses.
“‘When in Rome do as the Romans do,’” I suggested; but this expostulation had no effect whatever upon the determined young person, who became more and more set in her own way from the fact that her father quietly agreed with me. Furthermore, when she learned that there were no chairs in the Royal reception-room, she proclaimed that her Japanese attendant must carry a chair for her; because, if the Royal pair were seated, she insisted on being seated also. I was to tell “His Nibs,”—by which expression she referred to the smiling Prime Minister,—that she belonged to sovereign America, and therefore was as much an Empress in her own right as the feminine Majesty of Corea.
“Miss Hemster,” said I, “I don’t know whether what you wish can be accomplished or not; but in any case it is sure to cause considerable delay, and, furthermore, it will probably cost your father a very large sum of money.”
I speedily saw that I would better have preserved silence. The young lady drew herself up with great dignity and flashed upon me a glance of withering indignation.
“Will you oblige me by minding your own business?” she asked harshly. “Your duty is to obey orders, and not to question them.”
To this, of course, no reply was possible, so I contented myself by bowing to her, and, turning to Hun Woe, who stood smiling first at one and then at the other of us, not understanding even the drift of our conversation, but evidently growing somewhat uneasy at the tone it was taking, I translated to him as well as I could what Miss Hemster had said, softening the terms as much as possible, and laying great stress on her exalted position in her own country, of which land the Prime Minister was enormously ignorant.
Hun Woe became extremely grave; and his smile, unlike that in the advertisement, at once “came off.”
“If the strenuous Empress of China,” said I, “arrived at Seoul on a visit, she would certainly be received by His Majesty as an equal, and would not need to go through the ceremony of advance which you have so graphically described. Now this Princess,” I continued, “holds herself to be of a rank superior to the Empress of China, and is considered of higher status by her own countrymen.”
The Prime Minister very solemnly shook his head and seemed much disquieted.