"Unfortunately, I have not that pleasure."
"Neither have I, Heltzendorff," laughed the Prince, with a queer look in those slant-set eyes which appear so strangely goggly sometimes. "But I soon shall know her, I expect. In that direction I want your assistance."
"I am yours for your Highness to command," I replied, puzzled to know what was in progress. After a few seconds of silence the Crown-Prince suddenly exclaimed:
"So good is the report of Von Leutenberg that has reached the Emperor that—though he is as yet in ignorance of the fact—he has been promoted to the rank of major, and ordered upon a foreign mission—as military attaché in London. He will leave Berlin to-night to take up his new post."
"And the Countess?"
"By a secret report I happen to have here it is shown that they are a most devoted pair," he said, glancing at a sheet of buff paper upon which was typed a report, one which I recognized as emanating from the secret bureau at the Polizei-Prasidium, in Alexander Platz. "They live in the Lennestrasse, No. 44, facing the Tiergarten. Note the address."
Then his Highness paused, and, rising, crossed to the big writing-table set in the window, and there examined another report. Afterwards, glancing at the pretty buhl clock opposite, he suddenly said:
"The Count should call here now. I have sent informing him of the Emperor's goodwill, and ordering him to report here to take leave of me as his Colonel-in-Chief."
Scarcely had he spoken when Count von Leutenberg was announced by a flunkey in pink silk stockings, and a moment later the tall officer clicked his heels together and saluted smartly on the threshold.
"I thought you would be pleased at your well-merited promotion," said his Highness in quite a genial tone. "The Emperor wishes you to leave for London by the ten o'clock express for Flushing to-night, so as to report to his Excellency the Ambassador before he departs on leave. Hence the urgency. The Countess, of course, will remain in Berlin. You will, naturally, wish for time to make your arrangements in London and dispose of your house here."