‘I have told him, but he considers it an excuse on my part. Perhaps, if you were to warn him, he might listen to you.’ I did not much relish the task of forcing my advice on a headstrong youth, intoxicated with love and sovereignty. In the end I decided to return from Belgrade through Switzerland and take an opportunity of finding out something about Alexander’s rival for the Servian crown. But the ways of women are proverbially difficult to calculate. While I was still lingering in Belgrade, on the look-out for some useful introduction to Prince Peter, the world was startled by the public announcement of the forthcoming marriage of the King and the Countess. I went at once to wait on the prospective Queen of Servia to tender my formal congratulations. I found her already surrounded by a throng of courtiers, among whom I discerned the lean military figure and vulture nose of the man whom Draga herself had denounced to me a few days before--Colonel Masileff. So magical is the influence of royalty that I found myself able to detect a difference already in the manner, and even in the very voice, of the woman who had bared her heart to me so short a time before. She was gracious and cordial, but it was the graciousness and cordiality of a Sovereign to a subject, rather than that of a beautiful woman to a man. Coming away I thrust my arm through that of the formidable Colonel. ‘Have you any commands for Geneva?’ I asked. ‘I shall be there in the course of two days.’ Masileff let himself be surprised. ‘But I thought you were a friend of the Countess?’ he stammered. ‘Certainly--as you are,’ I retorted. ‘It seems to me that the Countess is doing a very good stroke of work for a cause in which you and I are both interested.’ Masileff glanced at me with curiosity. ‘Do you know, Monsieur V----’ (I had not seen cause to disguise my identity on this occasion), ‘that I think you must be more fortunate than I am. That is to say, I think you must possess the confidence of a person who has not yet honoured me by a sign that my services are acceptable to him.’ ‘Thank you, Colonel,’ I replied, bowing. ‘Your message shall be delivered in the right quarter.’ I left Belgrade the same night, and two days later found myself in the presence of a quiet, elderly man in a modest apartment near the famous Lake Leman. I had sent in my card with the pencilled addition: ‘Confidential agent of the Tsar, the German Emperor, and Monsieur Chamberlain.’ I felt sure that the names of the powerful triumvirate who, between them, controlled the destinies of the Old World, would secure me the attention of Prince Peter Karageorgevitch; and I was not mistaken. The Prince received me with a real or assumed nervousness, and expressed himself anxious to receive any message I might have for him.