The Crown-Prince had accompanied the Emperor on board the _Hohenzollern_
on his annual cruise up the Norwegian fjords, and the Kaiserin and the
Crown-Princess were of the party.
I had been left at home because I had not been feeling well, and with
relief had gone south to the Lake of Garda, taking up my quarters in
that long, white hotel which faces the blue lake at Gardone-Riviera. A
truly beautiful spot, where the gardens of the hotel run down to the
lake's edge, with a long veranda covered with trailing roses and
geraniums, peaceful indeed after the turmoil and glitter of our Court
life in Germany.
One morning at luncheon, however, just as I had seated myself at my
table set in the window overlooking the sunlit waters, a tall, rather
thin-faced, bald-headed man entered, accompanied by an extremely pretty
girl, with very fair hair and eyes of an unusual, child-like blue. The
man I judged to be about fifty-five, whose blotchy face marked him as
one addicted to strong liquors, and whose dress and bearing proclaimed
him to be something of a roue. He walked jauntily to the empty table
next mine, while his companion stared vacantly about her as she followed
him to the place which the obsequious _maitre d'hotel_ had indicated.
The stranger's eyes were dark, penetrating, and shifty, while there was
something about the young girl's demeanour that aroused my interest.
Her face, undeniably beautiful, was marred by a stare of complete
vacancy. She glanced at me, but I saw that she did not see. It was as
though her thoughts were far away, or else that she was under the spell
of some weird fascination.
That strange, blank expression in her countenance caused me to watch
her. On the one hand, the man had all the appearance of a person who had
run the whole gamut of the vices; while the fair-haired, blue-eyed girl
was the very incarnation of maiden innocence.
Perhaps it was because I kept my eyes upon her that the dark-eyed man
knit his brows and stared at me in defiance. Instinctively I did not
like the fellow, for as they started their meal I saw plainly the rough,
almost uncouth, manner in which he treated her.
At first I believed that they might be father and daughter, but this
suggestion was negatived when, on inquiry at the bureau, I was told that
the man was Martinez Aranda, of Seville, and that his companion was his
niece, Lola Serrano.
The latter always appeared exquisitely dressed, and the gay young men,
Italian officers and others, were all eager to make her acquaintance.
Yet it seemed to me that the man Aranda forbade her to speak to anyone.
Indeed, I watched the pair closely during the days following, and could
plainly discern that the girl went in mortal fear of him.
On the third day, while walking along the terrace facing the lake, I
came across the Spaniard, who, in affable mood, started a conversation,
and as we leaned upon the stone balustrade, smoking and gossiping, the
pretty girl with hair so fair even though she were a Southerner came up,
and I was introduced.
She wore a cool white linen gown, a big sun-hat, and carried a pale blue
sunshade. But my eye, expert where a woman's gown is concerned, told me
that that linen frock was the creation of one of the Paris
men-dressmakers, whose lowest charge for such a garment is one thousand
francs. Aranda and his pretty niece were certainly persons of
considerable means.
"How very beautiful the lake always appears at any hour!" the girl
exclaimed in French after her uncle had exchanged cards with me. "Truly
Italy is delightful."
"Ah, Mademoiselle," I replied. "But your brilliant Spain is ever
attractive."
"You know Spain?" inquired the bald-headed man at once.
"Yes, I know Spain, but only as a spring visitor," was my reply.
And from that conversation there grew in a few days quite an affable
friendship. We went together on excursions, all three of us, once by the
steamer up to Riva, where on landing and passing through the Customs we
sat at the cafe and sipped that delicious coffee topped by a foam of
cream, the same as one got at the "Bristol" in Vienna, or the "Hungaria"
in Budapest. Then at evening, while the pretty Lola gossiped with a
weedy old Italian Marchioness, whose acquaintance she had made, her
uncle played billiards with me, and he was no bad player either!
As soon as the Spaniard learnt of my position as personal-adjutant of
His Imperial Highness the Crown-Prince he became immediately interested,
as most people were, and plied me with all sorts of questions regarding
the truth of certain scandals that were at the moment afloat concerning
"Willie." As you know, I am usually pretty discreet. Therefore, I do not
think that he learned very much from me.
We were alone in the billiard-room, having a game after luncheon one
day, when a curious conversation took place.
"Ah, Count! You must have a very intimate knowledge of life at the
Berlin Court," he remarked quite suddenly, in French.
"Yes. But it is a strenuous life, I assure you," I declared, laughing.
"The Crown-Prince sometimes goes abroad incognito," he said, pausing and
looking me straight in the face.
"Yes--sometimes," I admitted.
"He was in Rome in the first week of last December. He disappeared from
Potsdam, and the Emperor and yourself were extremely anxious as to what
had become of him. He had gone to Berlin alone, without any attendant,
and completely disappeared. Yet, while you were all making secret
inquiries, and fearing lest the truth should leak out to the Press, His
Imperial Highness was living as plain Herr Wilhelm Nebelthau in an
apartment at Number Seventeen, Lungtevere Mellini. Isn't that so?"