"I can't make it out," declared Von Behr, the Chamberlain du service, to me one day two months later, while I was smoking with him in his room. "The old woman has the most complete control over Her Highness. Because she was averse to the journey, we are not going to Norway this year. Besides, since her appointment she has succeeded in plotting the dismissal of both Countess von Scheet-Plessen and Countess von Brockdorff."
"I know," I replied. I had been discussing it only a few hours before with Major von Amsberg, aide-de-camp of the Prince Eitel Frédéric, and he, too, had expressed himself both mystified and disgusted with the mysterious power exercised by the old woman in the yellow wig. "It seems so extraordinary," I went on, "that the Court should so utterly disregard the woman's reputation."
"Bah, my dear Heltzendorff!" laughed the Chamberlain. "When a woman arrives at seventy she has outlived all the peccadilloes of youth. And, after all, the reputations of most of us here are tarnished—more or less—eh?"
His remarks were indeed true. Nevertheless, it did not lessen the mystery of the appointment of the little old Countess as a lady-in-waiting, nor did it account for the strange influence which she held over the Imperial pair.
One evening I went to the Countess's house in the Stulerstrasse to a dinner-party, at which there were present the Crown-Prince, Admiral von Spee from Kiel, and Von Ilberg, the Emperor's doctor, together with the old Duke von Trachenberg, who held the honorary and out-of-date office of grand cupbearer to the Emperor, and the eternal "Uncle" Zeppelin. With us were a number of ladies, including their Serene Highnesses the Princess von Radolin and the Duchess von Ratibor, both ladies of the Court of the Kaiserin, and several others of the ultra-smart set.
After the meal there was a small dance, and about midnight, after waltzing with a pretty girl, the daughter of the Baron von Heintze-Weissenrode, we strolled together into the fine winter garden with its high palms, its plashing fountains, and its cunningly-secreted electric lights.
I was seated with her, chatting gaily, for we had met in July at Stubbenkammer, on the island of Rügen. She had been staying with her father at Eichstadt's, in Nipmerow, and we had all three been on some pleasant excursions along the Baltic coast, with its picturesque beech woods, white cliffs, and blue bays.
We were recalling a delightful excursion up to the Herthaburg, on the road to Sassnitz, that "altar of sacrifice" which tradition connects with the mysterious rites of the beautiful goddess Hertha, mentioned by Tacitus, when suddenly we overheard voices.
Two persons were approaching somewhere behind us, conversing in Italian—a man and a woman.
"Hush!" I whispered mischievously. "Listen! Do you know Italian?"