Читать книгу The Secret Memoirs of Bertha Krupp - Henry W. Fischer - Страница 4

CHAPTER III

A MOTHER'S REFLECTIONS

The Baroness and Franz—The Power-Drunk War Lord—A Pawn in the Game—The Sweets of Power—Germany Above All—The War Lord's Murder Lust—Fighting the Frankenstein—At the War Lord's Mercy

The Baroness's boudoir in Villa Huegel is a spacious apartment, hung in blue and silver, the colours of her noble house. Everything that riches, mellowed by refinement, could command enhanced its luxurious comfort. In the home of Baroness Krupp are trophies of her visits to foreign shores: cut glass, coins, bronzes and curios of all kinds. Silver-gilt caskets hold royal presents, precious stuffs and monstrous ornaments from German kings and kinglets—articles of jewellery for the most part, too big for a woman of taste. All are crowned and initialled, but few hall-marked. Since a prince is supposed to give away the real thing, why bother about carats? Numerous paintings, English landscapes, French and Italian decorative art and figures. An English grand piano in one corner. Britishers prefer German makes, but the much-travelled Baroness wouldn't tolerate the home product.

She is seated before a spindle-legged table with a crystal top over a velvet-lined drawer, where Madame's royal orders and decorations repose—crosses and stars, quadrupeds and birds of various outré forms and degrees. Pointing to one of them bearing the name of a queen famous for her beauty and misfortunes, she murmured: "How proud I was when he gave it to me! At that time I thought him chivalrous and believed him sincere in his religious professions. Since he intrigues to make my little girl the accomplice of his murderous desires, never more will I wear it."

"Master Franz desires to speak to your ladyship," said a manservant from behind the portières covering the doorway.

"Show him up."

Franz was a distant relative who had lived much in the Krupp household after he finished his studies at the late Frederick Krupp's expense. At this time he was chief electrical engineer of the establishment, destined for still higher honours, for experts held that the mantle of the great Edison had descended upon Franz's broad shoulders. He was like a big brother to the Krupp girls, and looked upon the Baroness as a mother, having never known his own.

Tall and good-looking, Franz, as a rule, dressed like an Englishman of distinction, but to-day he had chafed under the obligation of wearing evening dress for breakfast, lunch and tea, because of the War Lord's presence. Even now his nether garments belonged to the ceremonial variety, but he wore a jacket tightly buttoned over the wide expanse of his shirt-front.

"So it is proposed to make two kinds of steel in future," he whispered, after closing the door and drawing the curtains. "Has that your approval, Frau Krupp?"

The Ironmaster's widow heard only the first part of the sentence; she was too amazed to listen further.

"What is that you say, Franz?"

The young man kissed the Baroness's hand.

"Acting without your leave or consent—I thought so," he said. "I would have staked my life on it that you would permit no such infamy." Seeing the Baroness's questioning eyes focused on his, he explained:

An hour before the War Lord left the Director-General had sent for him—"to explain certain technical details," ran the message. He had to wait a considerable time in the ante-room of the conference chamber before being admitted, and while there could not help overhearing what was going on inside, as the War Lord was arguing in drill-ground accents.

This was the gist of his peroration, defended with consummate sophistry: It was a crime against the Fatherland to supply possible enemies with arms that at one time or another might be used against the War Lord's Majesty. That sort of thing—treason, to call it by its proper name—had been permitted long enough, too long, in fact; and now that the life-long defender of misguided business honesty had been removed by God's Hand—G-o-d-'s H-a-n-d—there must be an end of it. He (the War Lord), ever on guard against the Fatherland's enemies, had instructed his scientists to discover a substitute for hard steel with which to line enemy guns and armour. These substitutes were forthwith to be experimented with, and, if the results were satisfactory, must be employed, instead of the real steel, whenever the War Lord so directs.

"And Frederick hardly cold in his shroud!" gasped the Baroness.

"But you," cried Franz, "you can prevent this fraud, this disgrace! You must, you will, I am sure of it!"

The Baroness had risen and stared vacantly into the fire.

"God punish me if I would hesitate a moment to do as honour dictates, Franz, but Frederick Krupp left his widow bound hand and foot," she replied bitterly.

"You mean to say that you submit to the power-drunk War Lord? Abdicate your sacred trust? Make your children and your workpeople accomplices of fraudulent practices?"

"Haven't you heard about the stipulations which were made in your Uncle Frederick's last will and testament?"

"Not a word," replied Franz.

"I thought Bertha would tell you."

"I was busy all the afternoon, and then came the Director-General's order, which prevented me from saying good night to the children."

"Sit down then and listen," said the Baroness. "As Uncle Frederick often told you, the War Lord has tried for years to obtain control of the Krupp works. In particular he was for ever preaching against the policy of business integrity, the proudest of the Krupp inheritances; but though my husband allowed himself to be dominated by him in many respects, in this, the Krupp honesty, he remained adamant, partly thanks to my advice and strenuous opposition, I dare say. Up to now the Krupps have never played any government false, as you know."

"But, Uncle Frederick dead, the War Lord is moving heaven and earth to flog the firm into submission." There was suppressed rage in the tone of the young man's voice.

"Let me finish," demanded the Baroness. "Convinced that I would refuse to be the tool of his ambition, the War Lord persuaded your Uncle to ignore me as his legitimate successor, and the testament appoints Bertha sole heir and, again ignoring me, the War Lord her guardian and executor."

"Gott!" cried Franz.

The Baroness went on: "His position as supreme overlord of the Krupp business he made perfectly clear to us."

"Us? You mean the heads of the business?"

"I referred to the child and myself. He talked to the directors afterwards." The discrowned Cannon Queen told Franz the story of the Imperial interview. "He is the master," she said in conclusion, "Bertha his pawn, myself nobody."

"And we, the heads of the business, and our workmen, his slaves," added the chief electrician gloomily.

These two people, suddenly confronted by the unexpected—a wife shorn of her rights and wounded in her holiest maternal sentiments; an honest man commandeered to debase his genius and become an accessory to murder most foul—sat for a while in silence, brooding over their misfortune and the disasters threatening mankind as a consequence.

At last the Baroness roused herself. "And what did they want with you at the conference, Franz?"

"I was admitted after the War Lord had left to be closeted with the Director-General," replied the engineer, "and the directors seemed to me extraordinarily perturbed—far more than the master's death warrants among equals. Herr Braun acted as spokesman. He said the War Lord wanted the firm to experiment with a new steel lining for guns intended for foreign countries.

"'Foreign countries! What does that mean?' I asked, as if I had not been an involuntary listener to the War Lord's speech.

"'Majesty's orders—it behoves subjects to obey, not to ask questions,' said Herr Braun, with unusual severity. 'To the point, sir, acting upon the War Lord's orders to entrust the business to expert hands, we have decided to turn over the job to you.'"

Franz stopped short, then burst out: "What am I doing, Frau Krupp? You just told me that you are not the head of the firm, and I am about to reveal matters of the gravest importance confided to my keeping. I made a mistake—I was led away by filial reverence for my benefactor's widow. Pray forget what I have said."

Franz was about to withdraw, when a voice outside called: "Mamma, can I come in?"

"You said good night once. I thought you were in bed and asleep, Bertha."

The door opened, and a hand rustled the portières.

"Are you alone?"

"Only Franz."

"Oh!"

Bertha's blonde head thrust itself through the centre of the curtains, while she paused on the threshold. Then a naked foot in a blue velvet slipper with a golden heel: a vision in floating white rushed in and nestled childishly at the Baroness's feet.

"Howdy, Franz?" said Bertha, drawing her kimono tighter over her bosom. And to her mother: "I couldn't sleep after what Uncle Majesty told us to-night. So I came down. You are not angry, Mamma? Don't scold, Mamma," she added, observing her mother's stern face.

Frau Krupp patted the child's head. "Fate!" she said to Franz. "Voilà, the head of the Krupp firm. Continue."

The engineer bowed. "With your permission, my chief," he said, addressing Bertha.

"Anything you please, you big booby," laughed the child. Then, seriously: "I am your chief, indeed I am. Think of bossing a big chap like you and that arrogant Herr Braun, too!" She motioned Franz to bend down, and whispered in his ear, "Wouldn't it be fun to sack him?"

"No nonsense, child, if you want to stay up," Frau Krupp was very much in earnest, and to Franz she said: "Go on; I am impatient to hear the rest."

"I was telling your mother about some business Herr Braun wants to entrust me with," explained Franz, looking at the child.

"How very interesting," yawned Bertha; "but you can't get me to listen. Ah, there, I see one of Barbara's dolls. I will play with it till you get through; then supper. I didn't eat dinner with Fraulein," she added, looking at her mother, "and there's such a goneness here," touching her abdomen. The greatest force for destruction in the world, yet a child to all intents and purposes!

"Proceed," said the Baroness to Franz.

"With the chief's permission," began Franz formally; then, as if trying to make his disclosure as indefinite as possible: "You heard about the order from King Leopold, secured by the War-Lord's Brussels ambassador?"

The Baroness nodded, and Bertha took her eyes momentarily from her plaything. "Big, big guns," she said, describing a circle in the air by turning the doll's arm and hand round and round; "my apanage, poor Papa said. Glad you reminded me. I must tell Herr Braun about it. All the profits are to go to my children's hospital." She sat the doll astride her knee, bobbing her up and down, then burst out laughing. "See that head-dress, Franz, and her gown and apron—the Belgian colours. Looks like a coincidence, doesn't it?"

Bertha embraced the doll tenderly. "Thank your King for me, Dolly. The more guns he orders, the better for our little children here. German interests first," laughed Bertha, looking up. "Uncle Majesty told me so ever so often."

The "Germany-above-all" spirit, spelling moral and physical ruthlessness, spoke out of the child. The Fatherland first, second and third; perdition for the rest of the world, if Germany's interests be served thereby!

Whether the heiress had an inkling of what the War Lord really intended, it is impossible to decide; neither can there be any positive knowledge as to the attitude she might have assumed if, perchance, she did understand Franz's pregnant words.

Pupil of the War Lord, firmly believing in his preachings, saturated with his theories, and over-awed by his claims of Divine mission, his vapourings were gospel to her, and "Germany-above-all" was one of the commandments, even though it conflicted with all the others.

A monstrous case of folie à deux, "deux" standing for the German nation. Here we have a man decked out in ornate regimentals travelling about his country telling four millions of men: "You must die for Me," and immediately each man says to his wife: "I wonder if there is a special heaven for patriots like your husband?"

And to a certain class of persons he points out that science is but the handmaiden of wholesale murder, and that they must employ their God-given inventive genius, all their brains, all their time, to devise new ways and means for killing as many men, women and children as there are in the world outside of the German Empire. And they do.

And to a woman he says: "You were born to suffer. Give me your husband; I want him for the fighting." And she forthwith tells her man to make one more for the shambles.

And to the golden-haired girl he says: "A truce to your vanity, off with your locks, that I may buy more rifles; and your lover I want, too. His manly breast will make an excellent scabbard for a French or Russian lance."

And the golden-haired one raves that she is thrice happy to be allowed to sacrifice her beauty and the idol of her dreams for the War Lord.

"I want your fathers," he says to a playground full of children, "and your uncles and big brothers and cousins." And the little ones cry: "Hurrah! Long live the Emperor!"

"Would ye live for ever?" he queries of men between fifty and sixty-five. "To the barracks with you, even if you are but good for cannon fodder."

Someone tells him of a bunch of boys playing marbles in an alley; not one of them has finished his education. The War Lord examines them critically and sniffs. "You are big enough to stop a bullet somehow," he allows, and they are led to slaughter.

The All Highest looks upon the earth and boasts of his winged legions of man-killers. He declaims that Englishmen and Frenchmen and Italians and Belgians have turned out to fight God's Anointed; but adds with a sly smile they left their women at home and their brood, that he may out-Herod Herod. In his mind he feels the earth trembling under the heavy tread of his armed millions and the weight of his artillery.

This Dancing Dervish of universal slaughter, this man given over to murder-lust is the object of veneration not only of those whom he addresses in person, because of their mistaken sense of duty and patriotism; a whole nation, seventy millions strong, acclaim him Saviour—Messiah of the Fatherland's destinies.

One can understand individual sacrifice, but seventy millions of people, every mother's son and daughter, turning beasts of prey! It baffles psychological speculation. Everywhere the "Evangelium of German superdom," as the War Lord sees it, is loud.

Small wonder Bertha, born of man-killer stock and suckled on the breasts of militarism, which nourished her kith and kin and their hundreds of thousands of dependents, believes unconditionally in the doctrines pronounced by her godfather, to her the God-head of power infinite, omniscience incarnate!

Hence the implied rebuke to Franz: "German interests first." After that she returned to the nursery—her Belgian doll.

Frau Krupp looked significantly at Franz. "You were going to say——

"My orders are to experiment with the War Lord's new formula for steel on those guns for Liége."

Franz buried his head in his hands, elbows planted on knees, leaning forward heavily, while the Baroness sat looking at him, her nimble mind weighing the pros and cons. At last she reached out a hand and touched the young man's shoulder.

"Franz," she said solemnly.

The young man's head shot up and he stared at Frau Krupp as if she was a ghost. Answering the question in her eyes, he almost shouted, "Never!" holding up his right hand as if under oath.

The Baroness placed his hand on Bertha's head. "Swear that you will stand by this child."

"I swear, with all my heart, so help me, God," pronounced Franz, with severe emphasis.

A peculiar look came into the Baroness's eyes, half satisfied, half cunning, as with a sort of imperious finality she said: "It is well." Then, turning to the child: "Bertha, run along now and tell them to serve in the small dining-room in five minutes."

"Make it ten, Mamma, so I can put on my new negligée."

"All right, ten; but hurry," agreed Frau Krupp, looking at the pendule.

When the curtain had fallen behind Bertha the Baroness turned a white, severe face upon Franz. Then, abandoning all pretence of loyalty to the Grand War Lord, she told the terrible secrets long locked in her bosom, secrets imparted by her late husband or gathered from his lips during long, sleepless nights while he tossed on his pillow.

"It's the Frankenstein we have to fight," she said, "the pitiless, heartless, soul-less Evil One, intent upon setting the world afire through my child's inheritance. The plotting has been going on ever since the crowned monster was enthroned. Almost the first communication he made to Frederick, as head of the Empire, was: 'Now we must bend all energies to get ready. And when we are, I will set my foot upon the neck of the universe, Charlemagne redivivus!'

"Previous to that, Frederick and myself had agreed gradually to drop cannon- and ammunition-making. The Krupps were to create, instead of facilitating destruction. No longer was Essen to be a place upon which a merciful God looked with abhorrence. Engines of death had made us rich and powerful; henceforth the coined results of war were to be employed to make waste land arable, to drain morasses, to dig canals, to prosecute every peaceful endeavour promising to enhance the German people's chances of happiness and prosperity. The old saw of turning swords into ploughshares was to be enacted by the firm that had made war thrice deadly. Then the tempter came. 'I rely upon you, Frederick! You are the Fatherland's only hope, for Germany can achieve its destinies only through blood and iron.'

"'One more supreme effort, Frederick, then the War Lord will turn husbandman, making you manager-general of his great farm stretching from the Arctic Circle to the Mediterranean, from the Atlantic to Siberia.'

"As you know, the War Lord is an insinuating talker," continued Frau Krupp, "and his autocratic manner, enhanced by occasional flurries of condescension and persuading Frederick to join in his social relaxations. Ah!" she cried, striking the table with her hand, "it was these that forged the bullet which killed my husband!"

There was a shrill tone of rage and defiance in the last words. Then emotion mastered Frau Krupp's strength. She tottered, swayed, and would have fallen had not Franz caught her. He knew what she had suffered through her husband's intimacy with the War Lord and his cronies, and shuddered.

"Mother," he said unconsciously, as her head touched his breast. The Baroness let it rest there a moment; here was a tower of strength, of reserve force.

"Alas!" she continued, after a tense silence, "in the long run they ensnared Frederick. He succumbed to their ensnaring wiles as a foolish man might to the flatteries of a flirt. My counsel was no longer sought; the promises he had made—which I had exacted in happier days—were forgotten or denied. The very ploughs and ploughshares we were manufacturing then were thrown into the melting-pot for guns."

She picked up a book lying on the mantel. "'Vital Statistics of the German Empire,'" she read aloud; "'Steady Increase of Population.'" She flung the volume on the hearth. "Multiply like the Biblical sands; it only means that Essen works the harder to put you under the sod."

Frau Krupp dropped her voice and went on in a whisper: "Do you understand now what your threatened retirement would mean? It would mean that, excepting France and Great Britain, the whole of the world, all the smaller nations, would be practically at the War Lord's mercy, because their guns wouldn't shoot, their swords and lances wouldn't pierce.

"Such is the goal he has been striving for, the goal he wants to attain through my little girl. 'Have them all inadequately armed, and it will be a walk-over for German arms,' he calculates."

"And how can I prevent the world's debacle?"

"By fighting fire with fire. You cannot fight the War Lord openly—pretend obedience, fall in with his plans apparently, be an enthusiastic faker, as far as he can see; but don't smirch my little girl's business honour and submerge the world under a tidal wave of blood by making other nations defenceless. I have your promise, Franz?"

"It's a vast prospect," answered the young engineer, "but I have sworn to stand by Bertha——"

"I thank you," said the Baroness, as the portières were noisily pushed aside and a child's voice cried: "Supper's ready."

CHAPTER IV

BERTHA KRUPP, WAR LADY, ASSERTS HERSELF

Science Steps In—Franz Incurs the Kaiser's Wrath

Six months of feverish activity in the Essen works, of tests and measuring velocities, of experimenting with ingots, hardening processes, chilled iron castings and compound steel—who knows or cares for the technique of murder machinery save generals of the staff? As Mark Twain at one time labelled a book, "There is no weather in this," so the present author will not burden his pages with figures and statistics of any sort. It would be a tantalising undertaking at best, for the War Lord himself was directing, and insisted that his every misunderstood, mis-stated and often wholly untenable whim be immediately gratified by the ready servility of Krupp employés—"his people."

Up to the time under discussion the Emperor Wilhelm had devoted nearly all his energies to drill, political intrigue and uttering platitudes. To dabble in formulary details, with nobody to dispute his opinion or correct his errors, flattered him in the proportion as his judgment about ordnance construction became more and more fantastic.

He was always going about with a half-dozen professors at his heels, losing no opportunity of propounding nebulous and remarkable theories to their startled but complaisant ears.

At the beginning of the present century the German professor was a hundred years behind the times in his dress, manners and social habits. The German Punch had rudely caricatured him into a new habitat, where soap and water, clean collars, unfrayed trousers and non-Cromwellian headgear held sway. Up to that period, he had bathed occasionally, had curled his hair now and then, and thereafter relapsed into that state of slovenliness which is labelled scientific preoccupation by the German mob, and stands in awe of learning, be it ever so badly digested and wrongfully applied.

The War Lord had an English mother; he is a Barbarian fond of the tub. He perceived that professors might be made useful to him. But how make them presentable?

A visit to England gave him the clue.

And forthwith the new order of Court dress was launched: short clothes and pumps, silk stockings and jabot-shirts; and the official Press rudely informed those "entitled to the uniform" that bathing was imperative before getting into it.

The brotherhood of science furthermore received hints to patronise the War Lord's own barber in regard to their flowing beards. "But Admiral von Tirpitz wears a forked beard too," pleaded some. "No precedent, Herr Professor, his Excellency has Majesty's special permit!"

With the superfluous hair, the professors likewise had to shed their accustomed hyperbole.

"Don't speak until spoken to." "Answer in as few informatory words as can be managed." "Invariably make your answer meet the Imperial wishes." "Never contradict," were the Grand Master's instructions, and the scientific men abiding by them soon found themselves in clover, because they were "useful," while the rest were discarded.

In particular, experts in chemistry were exploited by the War Lord. "They must help to feed my army and people"—in case war lasts longer than expected. "They must invent new weapons of destruction"—for while powder and lead are well enough in their way, they do not spell the end of things.

German scientific men are very fond of power and have an enormous idea of their own importance, but their notions are subject to fits of extravagant humility if policy, or personal advantage, can be served by Uriah Heepisms. The keener ones in the Imperial entourage found that it would pay to cater to the mobility in the War Lord's ideas while there was a certain degree of logic. And if, perchance, he happened to drop into incoherency or extravagance, was it the professor's business to set him right? Court usage registered an emphatic negative.

Such were the beginnings of the partnership between War Lordism and the perversion of German science into an instrument of destruction. "Science to the rescue of the lame and halt"—an out-of-date notion. Science makes them by the hundreds of thousands.

The professors were powerful assistants to the War Lord in maintaining his grip on the Krupp throat and acquiring further business concessions from the firm; but, of course, as to realising the technical chimeras of the War Lord's mind with respect to new-fangled war machinery, there was more pretence than activity, for dividends had to be considered, and the War Lord would have been the first to make an outcry if his earnings were reduced by the fraction of a per cent.

Franz maintained his position as chief experimenter, and, his expert judgment in gunmaking as well as in electricity being unquestioned, he was able openly to frustrate some of the War Lord's most bloodthirsty plans by proving them impracticable to the satisfaction of the board of directors, which put a stop to their execution for the time at least.

"Uncle Majesty is very wroth with you," said Bertha to her relative one evening, when the War Lord had returned to Berlin after one of his unofficial visits to the Ruhr metropolis. He was in the habit of coming to Essen every little while now, unheralded and incog. Likewise in mufti; and what discarding of regimentals and associated fripperies meant to him few people can imagine.

His uniforms are built to make him appear taller and more imposing, while affording a ready background for all sorts of decorative material—ribbons, scarfs, stars, crosses and medals galore.

"Wroth with me?" queried Franz.

"Yes, with you," replied the child; "and I heard him dictate a long letter, giving you a terrible talking to. I just signed it," added Bertha with a satisfied grin.

"And why am I hauled over the coals?" asked Franz.

"I'm sure I don't know," replied the child. "'One of the things little girls cannot understand,' said Uncle Majesty. But I do know that you must—I said must—not do it again. I won't let you, do you hear? I mean Uncle Majesty won't."

Franz raised his hat and knocked his heels together, military fashion. He was about to withdraw when Bertha caught him by the arm. "You are not angry with me, Franz?" she pleaded.

"No, my chief."

"Say 'no, liebe Bertha.'"

"No, liebe Bertha."

At this moment a messenger caught up with the two young people on the road to Villa Huegel and handed Franz an official-looking envelope. The engineer looked inquiringly at Bertha. "May I?"

Instead of answer the Krupp heiress picked up her skirts with both hands and ran towards the house.

Her letter informed Franz that the task of completing the Belgian guns had been entrusted to other hands. Secondly, that, in future, communications about experiments ordered by the War Lord must be addressed to the heiress direct, not to the board of directors.

CHAPTER V

HOW THE WAR LADY WAS CAJOLED

An Intoxication of Vanity—Barbara's Plain Words—A Shameful Memory

The Imperial Chief-Court-and-House Marshal, Count Eulenburg, has the honour to command Fraulein Bertha Krupp to attend upon their Imperial and Royal Majesties, His Majesty the Emperor and King, and Her Majesty the Empress and Queen, during the Christmas and New Year's festivities at the Schloss, Berlin.

A royal equipage will await Fraulein Krupp's pleasure at the station, meeting the early morning train of December 22nd.

Dress: Silks, Velvets and Laces.

Attendance: Wardrobe mistress and maid; A footman.

The invitation, copperplated on an immense sheet of rather cheap paper and sent through the mail free, created much excitement in Villa Huegel, the more so as it was wholly unexpected, the War Lord never having intimated that an honour of that kind was in store for his godchild.

In the meantime Bertha had risen to the dignity of opening her own letters and using her discretion as to divulging their contents, or not, as she saw fit, or rather as the War Lord saw fit. This was strictly opposed to native custom; but isn't the King above the law? And certain reports, such as those ordered to be addressed to Bertha direct—Franz's for instance—All-Highest wouldn't have communicated to any save himself, not even to Frau Krupp. Hence his command that the Krupp heiress keep her own counsel in regard to her correspondence.

Bertha broke the great seal of the Court Marshal's office and her eyes became luminous as she read the printed words and angular script. She sat staring at the latter for a minute or two, while the Baroness, chafing under her impotency, pretended to be busy with an orange. Finally Barbara tiptoed behind her sister's chair and looked over her shoulder. The fourteen-year-old girl being well up in Court lore—having seen dozens of such letters addressed to her late father—applied herself to the essentials, skipping the merely decorative lines.

"Christmas and New Year's festivities at the Schloss, Berlin," she read aloud. Then higher up: "Fraulein Bertha Krupp."

"Oh, Mamma!" she cried, "we are not invited, you and I. Isn't that mean of Uncle Majesty?" She stamped her foot. "But he shan't kiss me when he comes again—see if I let him kiss me."

"Hold your tongue, naughty child."

Bertha spoke with an air of unwonted authority. She folded up her letter.

"Just see how high and mighty we are!" mimicked Barbara. "'Naughty child,' and what are you? I shouldn't wonder if Uncle Majesty spanked you sometimes, when you are alone with him; you always come away full of humility to him and of arro—arro—" (she couldn't find the word) "the other thing to us—to Mamma and me, I mean."

The Baroness put out her arm as if she expected the children to resort to fisticuffs. "Barbara," she called half pleadingly.

"She will go to her room," insisted Bertha, ringing. The butler responded so promptly that there was no doubt he had been listening behind the portières.

"Fraulein Barbara's governess," Bertha ordered. And as the man was going out: "My secretary shall report at once in my council room."

"Are you mad?" cried Frau Krupp, when the curtains had dropped behind the servant. Bertha seemed so unlike herself—unlike what her child ought to be.

The Krupp heiress disdained to answer.

"Since I am to be their Imperial and Royal Majesties' guest, I must prepare for the honour," she deigned after a little while; "in half an hour I'll leave for Cologne. You may accompany me, if you like, Mother."

The Baroness grew white under the lash of Bertha's patronising tone. "You shall not go," she said hotly.

"If you will come to the council room you can see in black and white my authority to go where and when I please," replied Bertha, going out.

Barbara and her mother looked at each other in blank amazement, the child not understanding, the mother understanding but too well. Bertha was lost to her; the supreme egotist had gained a strangle-hold on her flesh and blood.

With the strange intuition that often moves children to do the right thing at the right time when grown-ups are at their wits' end, Barbara seemed to divine what passed in her mother's mind and, burying her face in the Baroness's lap, she sobbed out convulsively words of consolation, of endearment and unbounded affection. Frau Krupp bent over the child's head and kissed her again and again. "My little girl, my Barbara, won't discard Mother, will she?" she said in broken tones.

"Not for ten thousand Uncle Majesties," cried Barbara fiercely; and, as if the words had freed her from a spell, she rose of a sudden and planted herself in front of Frau Krupp.

"—— Uncle Majesty," she said, clenching her little fists.

Then, overcome by her breach of the conventions, she ran out of the room and into the arms of her governess.

Frau Krupp would not have had the heart to scold Barbara even if she had not run away. "—— him!"—her own sentiments. With such reflections she leaned back in her great arm-chair, undecided whether she should follow Bertha to the council room or not. Her motherly dignity said "No," while anxiety for her child urged her to go to her.

"To think of him playing the bully in my own house," she deliberated; "the coward, setting a child against her mother! But I know what it's done for. He wants her like wax in his hand—the hand getting ready to choke the world into submission."

The butler entered with soft step.

"Fraulein begs to say that she will leave for Cologne at 10.30 sharp, and she desires your ladyship to get ready."

"Thank you, my maid shall lay out the new black silk costume. Did you order the horses?"

"Fraulein's secretary is attending to everything," said the butler in a hurt voice. "I don't know by what authority he assumes my duties," he added.

"He shall not do so again, Christian," promised the Baroness.

Three hours later Frau Krupp and Bertha were going the rounds of Cologne's most exclusive shops. The Hochstrasse is too narrow to permit the use of a carriage; the ladies were followed, then, by a train of commissionaires laden with boxes, for Bertha was buying everything in the line of frocks, costumes and millinery that was pretty and expensive. Consult her mother? Not a bit of it. The Court Marshal's instructions were silk, velvet, laces; nothing else mattered.

The shopkeepers, of course, knew Frau Krupp; they had known Bertha familiarly ever since she was in short frocks. The girl of seventeen had blossomed into the richest heiress of the world, yet it would have been almost indecent not to consider the elder woman first.

So the best chair was pushed forward for the Baroness, and man-milliners and mannequins fell over each other trying to win her applause for the goods offered. The widow of the Ironmaster smiled and talked vaguely about their merits, but announced that Bertha was to do her own choosing.

Bertha went about her task like an inexperienced country lass suddenly fallen into a pot of money. The girl seemed to be working under a sense of assertiveness, tempered by responsibility to a higher power. That higher power regarded her mother of no consequence. Though of a naturally dutiful and kindly nature, Bertha assumed an air of independence unbecoming to so young a woman.

Indeed her want of respect was of a piece with her "Uncle Majesty's" behaviour in a little Italian town, when his father lay dying there. The War Lord, then a junior Prince, had crossed the Alps as the representative of his grandsire, head of the State, and instantly presumed to lord over his mother, who was the Princess Royal of an Empire, compared with which his own patrimony is a petty Seigneurie.

He arrived on a Saturday night, and at once ordered divine service for seven o'clock next morning, an hour suiting his restlessness and most unsuited to his parent, worn out with night vigils and anxieties.

However, to humour him, and also to gain more time to spend with her ailing husband, the Imperial Mother acquiesced in the arrangement; but imagine her surprise when in the morning she learned at the last moment that, at her son's behest, the House Marshal had not provided carriages as usual, and that she was expected to walk three-quarters of a mile to the chapel.

Meanwhile the official procession of church-goers had started. At the head a platoon of cuirassiers, followed by the Prince's Marshal and staff. Next, his adjutants and a deputation of officers from his regiment; his personal servants in gala livery; finally, himself, walking alone, the observed of all observers.

The father's own household was commanded to fall behind. So were his mother and sisters; the Prince was not at all interested in them. His Royal Mother might lean on the arm of a footman for all he cared.

Here we have an exaggeration of the most repulsive traits of egotism, self-indulgence, callousness, coarseness, cruelty and deceitfulness, for, as intimated, Wilhelm had been careful to keep his parent in ignorance of the affront to be put upon her.

Small wonder that a person so constituted, having vested himself with full charge of a girl's soul and mind as she approached mental and physical puberty, upset her filial equilibrium, while her actions reflected the impress of his own arrogance.