thought, when he put this
question to me:
"You are keeping a Diary, Louise?"
I was frightened dumb. I stared at him.
"What's the matter," he laughed. "I'm not going to eat you." He didn't
seem to be at all perturbed.
"How do you know I keep a Diary?" I stuttered.
Nonchalantly enough he made answer: "Your bag-of-bones Baroness told me.
Full of forbidden things, I suppose, since you regard it a state secret.
You often say that my education was sadly neglected. Maybe I can learn a
thing or two from your scribblings. Let's look 'm over."
By this time I had regained my composure. "Naturally," I said, "a Diary
records thoughts and things intended for the writer only, but if you
choose to be ungentlemanly enough to wish to peruse those pages more
sacred than private letters, I suppose I will have to submit."
Frederick Augustus changed the subject, but I felt instinctively that he
was disappointed. Someone had played on his curiosity, and to go
unsatisfied is not at all in this prince's line.
Of course, the someone was the Tisch, but how did she know? I will ask
her as soon as Frederick Augustus is gone.
* * * * *
LOSCHWITZ, _May 2, 1901_.
"Have you ever seen my Diary?" I asked the Tisch this morning.
"Never, Your Imperial Highness."
"Then how do you know I keep a Diary?"
"I surmised it because I saw Your Imperial Highness write repeatedly in
one and the same book." The hussy affected a humble tone, but the note
of triumph and hatred underlying the creature's meekness did not escape
me.
"And the mere surmise prompted you to blab to my husband, arouse his
suspicions?"
"For Heaven's sake," cried my Grand Mistress, "I had no idea that His
Royal Highness didn't know about the Diary. Secrets between the
Prince-Royal and Your Imperial Highness--how dare I pre-suppose such a
state of things? His Royal Highness casually asked how the Crown
Princess killed time in Loschwitz. I mentioned riding, driving,
bicycling, writing letters, writing in the Diary----"
My fingers itched to slap her lying face, Grand-Duchess of Tuscany
fashion, but I kept my temper.
"Listen to me," I said. "While you have secret instructions to play the
serpent in my household and to betray, for dirty money, your mistress of
the Blood Imperial, your duties as a spy are confined to my going and
coming, to my exterior conduct, to my visits outside the palace, to my
friendships, perhaps.
"Th
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