"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.
