The week had been a strenuous one of train-travel, luncheons, tiring dinners, receptions, dancing, and general junketings, and I was glad enough to get back to my bachelor rooms—those rooms in the Krausenstrasse that you knew so well before the bursting of the war-cloud. To dance attendance upon an Imperial Crown-Prince, as well as upon an autocratic Emperor, becomes after a time a wearisome business, however gay and cosmopolitan a man may be.
I had only been at home a few hours when a telephone message summoned me at five o'clock to the Crown-Prince's Palace.
His Imperial Highness, who had, I knew, been lunching with the Emperor at the Königliches Schloss across the bridge, seemed unusually serious and thoughtful. Perhaps the Emperor had again shown his anger at his peccadilloes, as he did so frequently.
"Count," he said, after a few seconds of silence, during which I noted that upon his table lay a private letter from the German Ambassador in London. "You will recall my conversation regarding the Countess von Leutenberg—eh?"
"Perfectly," was my reply.
"I told you that I should require you to introduce me," he said. "Well, I want you to do so this evening. She has taken a box at the Königliche Opera to-night, where they are to play Falstaff. I shall be there, and you will be with me. Then you will introduce me to your pretty friend. Understand?" And he grinned.
That night, in accordance with my instructions, I sat in the Emperor's box with the Crown-Prince, Tresternitz, and two personal-adjutants, and, recognizing the Countess von Leutenberg in a box opposite, accompanied by an elderly lady, I took the Crown-Prince round, and there presented her to him, greatly to her surprise and undisguised delight.
The Prince and the Countess chatted together, while I sat with her elderly companion. Then, when we had withdrawn, my Imperial Master exclaimed:
"Ah! my dear Heltzendorff. Why, she is one of the prettiest women in all Berlin! Surely it is unfortunate—most unfortunate."
What was unfortunate? I was further puzzled by that last sentence, yet I dare not ask any explanation, and we went back to our own box.