In the presence of death all consolers are futile, and Jennie realized this as she endeavoured as well as she could to comfort the girl. Her heart was so much enlisted in this that perhaps her intellect was the less active; but here she stood on the very threshold of the secret she had come to Vienna to discover, and yet had not the slightest suspicion that the girl’s tragedy and her own mission were interwoven. Jennie had wondered at the stupidity of Cadbury Taylor, who failed to see what seemed so plainly before him, yet here was Jennie herself come a thousand miles, more or less, to obtain certain information, and here a sobbing girl was narrating the very item of news that she had come so far to learn—all of which would seem to show that none of us are so bright and clever as we imagine ourselves to be.
In the afternoon the Princess entered Jennie’s sitting-room carrying in her hand a bunch of letters.
“There!” she cried, “while you have been resting I have been working, and we are not going to allow any time to be lost. I have written with my own hand invitations to about two dozen people to our tea on Thursday; among others, the wife of the Premier, Countess Stron. I expect you to devote yourself to that lady and tell me the result of the conversation after it is over. Have you been talking consolation to Gretlich? I came up here half an hour ago, and it seemed to me I heard the sound of crying in this room.”
“Oh, yes,” said Jennie, “she has been telling me all her trouble. It seems she had a lover in the army, and he has been killed in some accident in the Treasury.”
“What kind of an accident?”
“Gretlich said there had been an explosion there.”
“Dear me! I never heard of it. It is a curious thing that one must come from London to tell us our own news. An explosion in the Treasury! and so serious that a soldier was killed! That arouses my curiosity, so I shall just sit down and write another invitation to the wife of the Master of the Treasury.”
“I wish you would, because I should like to know something further about this myself. Gretlich seems to have had but scant information regarding the occurrence, and I should like to know more about it so that I might tell her.”
“We shall learn all about it from madame, and I must write that note at once for fear I forget it.”