“Yes,” drawled the equerry. “She’s been admired everywhere, as usual, and half our staff are over head and ears in love with her. She’s been flirting outrageously.”
“Then half your staff are fools,” I exclaimed bluntly.
“Ah, my dear Trewinnard, she is so sweet, so very charming, so exquisite, so entirely unlike the other girls at Court—so delightfully unconventional.”
“A little too unconventional to suit some—if all I hear be true,” I remarked with a smile.
“You know her, of course. She’s an intimate friend of yours. I overheard her one day telling the Emperor what an excellent tennis player you were.”
“Well, I don’t fancy His Majesty interests himself very much in tennis,” I laughed. “He has other, and far more important, matters to occupy his time—the affairs of his great nation.”
“Natalia, or Tattie, as they call her in the Imperial circle, is his favourite niece. Nowadays she goes everywhere with him, and does quite a lot of his most private correspondence—that which he does not even trust to Calitzine.”
“Then the Emperor is more friendly towards Her Imperial Highness than before—eh?” I asked, for truth to tell I was very anxious to satisfy myself upon this point.
“Yes. She has been forgiven for that little escapade in Moscow.”
“What escapade?” I asked, feigning surprise.