ecial passport they might not
pass beyond the limits of Brussels and its suburbs. Except in the
matter of the farewell visit to the farm at Tervueren, Vivie was
reluctant to ask for any such favour from von Giesselin, though she
was curious to see the condition of Louvain and to ascertain whether
her father still inhabited the monastic house of his order--she had
an idea that he was away in Germany in connection with his schemes
for raising the Irish against the British Government. Von Giesselin
however was becoming sentimentally inclined towards her and she saw
no more of him than was necessary to maintain polite relations. Frau
von Giesselin, for various reasons of health or children, could not
join him at Brussels as so many German wives had done with other of
the high functionaries (to the great embitterment of Brussels
society); and there were times when von Giesselin's protestations of
his loneliness alarmed her.

The King of Saxony had paid a visit to Brussels in the late autumn
of 1914 and had invited this Colonel of his Army to a fastuous
banquet given at the Palace Hotel. The King--whom the still defiant
Brussels Press, especially that unkillable _La Libre Belgique_,
reminded ironically of his domestic infelicity, by enquiring
whether he had brought Signor Toselli to conduct his orchestra--was
gratified that a subject of his should be performing the important
duties of Secretary to the Brussels Government, and his notice of
von Giesselin gave the latter considerable prestige, for a time; an
influence which he certainly exercised as far as he was able in
softening the edicts and the intolerable desire to annoy and
exasperate on the part of the Prussian Governors of province and
kingdom. He even interceded at times for unfortunate British or
French subjects, stranded in Brussels, and sometimes asked Vivie
about fellow-countrymen who sought this intervention.

This caused her complicated annoyances. Seeing there was some hope
in interesting her in their cases, these English governesses,
tutors, clerks, tailors' assistants and cutters, music-hall singers,
grooms appealed to Vivie to support their petitions. They paid her
or her mother a kind of base court, on the tacit assumption that
she--Vivie--had placed Colonel von Giesselin under special
obligations. If in rare instances, out of sheer pity, she took up a
case and von Giesselin granted the petition or had it done in a
higher quarter, his action was clearly