CHAPTER I

It is only with the politest affectation of interest, as a rule,

that English Society learns the arrival in its midst of an ordinary

Continental nobleman; but the announcement that the Baron Rudolph von

Blitzenberg had been appointed attache to the German embassy at the

Court of St. James was unquestionably received with a certain flutter of

excitement. That his estates were as vast as an average English county,

and his ancestry among the noblest in Europe, would not alone perhaps

have arrested the attention of the paragraphists, since acres and

forefathers of foreign extraction are rightly regarded as conferring

at the most a claim merely to toleration. But in addition to these

he possessed a charming English wife, belonging to one of the

most distinguished families in the peerage (the Grillyers of

Monkton-Grillyer), and had further demonstrated his judgment by

purchasing the winner of the last year's Derby, with a view to improving

the horse-flesh of his native land.

From a footnote attached to the engraving of the Baron in a Homburg hat

holding the head of the steed in question, which formed the principal

attraction in several print-sellers' windows in Piccadilly, one gathered

that though his faculties had been cultivated and exercised in every

conceivable direction, yet this was his first serious entrance into the

diplomatic world. There was clearly, therefore, something unusual

about the appointment; so that it was rumored, and rightly, that an

international importance was to be attached to the incident, and a

delicate compliment to be perceived in the selection of so popular a

link between the Anglo-Saxon and the Teutonic peoples. Accordingly “Die

Wacht am Rhein” was played by the Guards' band down the entire length

of Ebury Street, photographs of the Baroness appeared in all the leading

periodicals, and Society, after its own less demonstrative but equally

sincere fashion, prepared to welcome the distinguished visitors.

They arrived in town upon a delightful day in July, somewhat late in

the London season, to be sure, yet not too late to be inundated with a

snowstorm of cards and invitations to all the smartest functions that

remained. For the first few weeks, at least, you would suppose the Baron

to have no time for thought beyond official receptions and unofficial

dinners; yet as he looked from his drawing-room windows into the gardens

of Belgrave Square upon the second afternoon since they had settled into

this great mansion, it was not upon such functions that his fancy ran.

Nobody was more fond of gaiety, nobody more appreciative of purple and

fine linen, than the Baron von Blitzenberg; but as he mused there he

began to recall more and more vividly, and with an ever rising pleasure,

quite different memories of life in London. Then by easy stages regret

began to cloud this reminiscent satisfaction, until at last he sighed--

“Ach, my dear London! How moch should I enjoy you if I were free!”

For the benefit of those who do not know the Baron either personally or

by repute, he may briefly be described as an admirably typical Teuton.

When he first visited England (some five years previously) he stood

for Bavarian manhood in the flower; now, you behold the fruit. As

magnificently mustached, as ruddy of skin, his eye as genial, and his

impulses as hearty; he added to-day to these two more stone of Teutonic

excellences incarnate.

In his ingenuous glance, as in the more rounded contour of his

waistcoat, you could see at once that fate had dealt kindly with him.

Indeed, to hear him sigh was so unwonted an occurrence that the Baroness

looked up with an air of mild surprise.

“My dear Rudolph,” said she, “you should really open the window. You are

evidently feeling the heat.”

“No, not ze heat,” replied the Baron.

He did not turn his head towards her, and she looked at him more

anxiously.

“What is it, then? I have noticed a something strange about you ever

since we landed at Dover. Tell me, Rudolph!”

Thus adjured, he cast a troubled glance in her direction. He saw a face

whose mild blue eyes and undetermined mouth he still swore by as the

standard by which to try all her inferior sisters, and a figure whose

growing embonpoint yearly approached the outline of his ideal hausfrau.

But it was either St. Anthony or one of his fellow-martyrs who observed

that an occasional holiday from the ideal is the condiment in the

sauce of sanctity; and some such reflection perturbed the Baron at this

moment.

“It is nozing moch,” he answered.

“Oh, I know what it is. You have grown so accustomed to seeing the same

people, year after year--the Von Greifners, and Rosenbaums, and all

those. You miss them, don't you? Personally, I think it a very good

thing that you should go abroad and be a diplomatist, and not stay in

Fogelschloss so much; and you'll soon make loads of friends here. Mother

comes to us next week, you know.”

“Your mozzer is a nice old lady,” said the Baron slowly. “I respect her,

Alicia; bot it vas not mozzers zat I missed just now.”

“What was it?”

“Life!” roared the Baron, with a sudden outburst of thundering

enthusiasm that startled the Baroness completely out of her composure.

“I did have fun for my money vunce in London. Himmel, it is too hot to

eat great dinners and to vear clothes like a monkey-jack.”

“Like a what?” gasped the Baroness.

To hear the Baron von Blitzenberg decry the paraphernalia and splendors

of his official liveries was even more astonishing than his remarkable

denunciation of the pleasures of the table, since to dress as well

as play the part of hereditary grandee had been till this minute his

constant and enthusiastic ambition.

“A meat-jack, I mean--or a--I know not vat you call it. Ach, I vant a

leetle fun, Alicia.”

“A little fun,” repeated the Baroness in a breathless voice. “What kind

of fun?”

“I know not,” said he, turning once more to stare out of the window.

To this dignified representative of a particularly dignified State

even the trees of Belgrave Square seemed at that moment a trifle too

conventionally perpendicular. If they would but dance and wave their

boughs he would have greeted their greenness more gladly. A good-looking

nursemaid wheeled a perambulator beneath their shade, and though she

never looked his way, he took a wicked pleasure in surreptitiously

closing first one eye and then the other in her direction. This might

not entirely satisfy the aspirations of his soul, yet it seemed to serve

as some vent for his pent-up spirit. He turned to his spouse with a

pleasantly meditative air.

“I should like to see old Bonker vunce more,” he observed.

“Bunker? You mean Mr. Mandell-Essington?” said she, with an apprehensive

note in her voice.

“To me he vill alvays be Bonker.”

The Baroness looked at him reproachfully.

“You promised me, Rudolph, you would see as little as possible of Mr.

Essington.”

“Oh, ja, as leetle--as possible,” answered the Baron, though not with

his most ingenuous air. “Besides, it is tree years since I promised.

For tree years I have seen nozing. My love Alicia, you vould not have me

forget mine friends altogezzer?”

But the Baroness had too vivid a recollection of their last (and only)

visit to England since their marriage. By a curious coincidence that

also was three years ago.

“When you last met you remember what happened?” she asked, with an

ominous hint of emotion in her accents.

“My love, how often have I eggsplained? Zat night you mean, I did

schleep in mine hat because I had got a cold in my head. I vas not

dronk, no more zan you. Vat you found in my pocket vas a mere joke,

and ze cabman who called next day vas jost vat I told him to his ogly

face--a blackmail.”

“You gave him money to go away.”

“A Blitzenberg does not bargain mit cabmen,” said the Baron loftily.

His wife's spirits began to revive. There seemed to speak the owner of

Fogelschloss, the haughty magnate of Bavaria.

“You have too much self-respect to wish to find yourself in such a

position again,” she said. “I know you have, Rudolph!”

The Baron was silent. This appeal met with distinctly less response than

she confidently counted upon. In a graver note she inquired--

“You know what mother thinks of Mr. Essington?”

“Your mozzer is a vise old lady, Alicia; but we do not zink ze same on

all opinions.”

“She will be exceedingly displeased if you--well, if you do anything

that she THOROUGHLY disapproves of.”

The Baron left the window and took his wife's plump hand affectionately

within his own broad palm.

“You can assure her, my love, zat I shall never do vat she dislikes. You

vill say zat to her if she inquires?”

“Can I, truthfully?”

“Ach, my own dear!”

From his enfolding arms she whispered tenderly--

“Of course I will, Rudolph!”

With a final hug the embrace abruptly ended, and the Baron hastily

glanced at his watch.

“Ach, nearly had I forgot! I must go to ze club for half an hour.”

“Must you?”

“To meet a friend.”

“What friend?” asked the Baroness quickly.

“A man whose name you vould know vell--oh, vary vell known he is! But

in diplomacy, mine Alicia, a quiet meeting in a club is sometimes better

not to be advertised too moch. Great wars have come from one vord

of indiscretion. You know ze axiom of Bismarck--'In diplomacy it is

necessary for a diplomatist to be diplomatic.' Good-by, my love.”

He bowed as profoundly as if she were a reigning sovereign, blew an

affectionate kiss as he went through the door, and then descended the

stairs with a rapidity that argued either that his appointment was

urgent or that diplomacy shrank from a further test within this mansion.