fact that they are but recently married,
prefer to travel in pairs, and always take the lead. Accordingly Henry
and myself, incog. as far as my future subjects go, are free to indulge
in occasional caresses and sweet nonsense-talk.

I was pouring honeyed words into Henry's ears the other morning when my
wheel skidded on the wet pavement, and before he, or I, could save me, I
was down on my back in the mud.

The fact that I was again _enceinte_, and the other fact that I was
covered with dirt, ought to have prompted me to return to the palace at
once, but how un-Louise-like the straight and sane course would have
been.

I allowed myself to be wiped off by Henry; then mounted my wheel anew
and raced after the Vitzthums.

Unfortunately, a reporter heard of the incident and, for the benefit of
his pocket, made a column out of it.

A few hours after the story appeared in the evening paper, the palace
was in an uproar. The King wasn't well enough to scold me, so he
delegated that pleasant duty to Prince George. His Royal Highness
promptly informed me that the "damned bicycling had to stop."

CHAPTER XLVI

FEARS FOR MY LOVE

Some reflections on queens of old who punished recreant
lovers--Henry was in debt and I gave him money--Indignities by which
some of that money was earned--Husband accompanies me to
Loschwitz--Reflections on Frederick Augustus's character.

_January 15, 1901._

My love played the melancholy Dane for the last few days. His tenderness
seemed labored, his spirits under a cloud. Every smile I got had to be
coaxed from him.

"The end of my happiness," I thought; "some chit of a girl dethroned
me." And I cursed my birthday. "A kingdom for ten years off my age."

And my thoughts of thoughts travelled back to the times when royal
ladies had their rivals immured, as practiced by a Brandenburg princess
at the Kaiser's hunting box at Gruenewald, or made a head shorter, like
Lady Jane Grey, who was far too pretty to please Elizabeth; or shot, as
elected by Queen Christina, _tribade_ and nymphomaniac both.

And the things Queen Bess did to her unfaithfuls and the crimes Mary
Stuart perpetrated to cheat Jeannie Bothwell out of her doughty Hepburn!

"If I were Queen," I thought, and I must have spoken aloud, for Henry
said: "You would make me a great lord, love, wouldn't you, give me the
best paying office at court, but that's small comfort to my creditors
today."

"It's cr