"I regret, Count, that I cannot answer your question."
"If you are, as you say, the Crown-Prince's friend, it would surely be a friendly act to let us know the truth, so that steps may be taken, perhaps, to avoid the secret of Germany's diplomacy from leaking out to her enemies."
"All I can tell you, Count, is that the matter is one of gravest importance."
"But will you not speak openly, and give us the actual facts?"
"I will—but to His Imperial Highness alone," was her answer.
"You wish to meet him, then?" I asked, rather suspicious that it might after all be only a woman's ruse. And yet what she had said showed that she knew the Emperor's secret, for she had actually mentioned Von Gessler's name in connection with the pretended Anglo-German entente.
"If His Highness will honour me with an interview, then I will reveal all I know, and, further, will suggest a means of preventing the truth from leaking out."
"But you are French," I said.
"I have told you so," she laughed. "But probably His Highness will refuse to see Julie de Rouville, therefore I think it best if you show him this."
From her little gold chain-purse she produced a small, unmounted photograph of herself, and handed it to me.