e. But if I must take Tisch, I always command her to sit
behind me. Etiquette forbids her the front of the box and from the rear
she can see only the stage.

What fun to carry on a flirtation right under the nose of that
acrid-hearted, snivelling bigot, who would mortgage part of the eternal
bliss she promises herself for a chance to catch me at it!

Am I flirting, then?

To spite the Tisch I would plant horns on the very Kaiser.

* * * * *

_April 1, 1896._

The Duke of Saxony is dead--the man who at one time offered violence to
His Majesty. Bernhardt was mistaken; he left a wife and three children.
Of course, no recognized wife. Just the woman he married. Unless you are
of the blood-royal, you won't see the difference, but that is no concern
of mine.

Novels and story books have a good deal to say on the subject of
inheritance-fights among the lowly. Greed, hard-heartedness,
close-fistedness, treachery, cheating all around! See what will happen
to the Duke's widow and her little ones.

According to the house laws, a regular pirate's code, his late
Highness's fortune reverts to the family treasury. Prince Johann George
will derive the revenues from the real estate the Duke owned privately.
He is already rich,--sufficient reason for his wanting more. I shudder
when I think what they will do to the woman the Duke married.

The most notable thing about the funeral was the "calling down" Prince
Bernhardt got.

"You will go to my valet and ask him to lend you one of my helmets.
Yours is not the regulation form, I see," said the King to him in the
voice of a drill-sergeant. And Bernhardt had to take to his heels like a
school-boy caught stealing apples.

I had to laugh when I observed the meeting between my erstwhile admirer,
the Prince of Bulgaria, and His Majesty.

Ferdinand's broad chest was ablaze with orders and decorations, but his
valet had forgotten to pin onto him the Cross of the _Rautenkrone_, the
Royal Saxe House decoration. There were plenty of others, but the King
had eyes only for the one not dangling from a green ribbon.
Consequently, Ferdinand, though a sovereign Prince, got only one "_How
art thou?_" If we were living in the eighteenth, instead of the
nineteenth, century, his valet's neglect would constitute a prime cause
for war between the two countries.

CHAPTER XXXIII

MELITA'S LOVE AFFAIRS AND MINE

The Grand Duchess tells me how she cudg