"I didn't go out at all during the two days while I was waiting for the reply to my telegram. Then it came, the little blue slip. You were looking hard at me, Melusine, so I smiled as I opened it. It contained these simple words: "'I will never see my daughter until she has done her duty.' "What a heart of flint the old Kalmuck had! "I read it and fell to the floor like a stone. * * * * * * "I'm afraid I most stop to explain matters at this point, _ami_, or you may find the rest incomprehensible. No doubt you are asking yourself: 'How it could ever have come about that a will like Aurora's could have yielded? What could this invisible and powerful Frederick-Augustus have done to get the Empress, Rudolph's godmother, and the Kaiser on his side?' "I expect you read your foreign news carefully enough in 1909 to know that about that time the Eulenburg affair and a Moltke-Harden case were causing a considerable stir in German Court circles. Personally, the way these folk took their pleasures was a matter of indifference to me. What strikes me as monstrous is the fact that these scandals had a considerable effect on my fortunes. "Frederick-Augustus seldom stayed at Lautenburg in his brother's lifetime. I only saw him three or four times, the first occasion being my wedding, and the second, six months later, the funeral of his wife, a worthy but stupid woman with wrists like a scullery-maid's. His Serene Highness your pupil is hardly more intelligent than she. "The rest of his time was spent in Berlin. The man you have seen so reserved and formal led a very gay life there. Never believe those who tell you that profligacy is harmful _ami_. The rise of Frederick-Augustus is proof to the contrary. "The one thing in which the present Grand Duke is past-master is the art of compromising others without compromising himself. He made ample use of it at Berlin in 1909. Intimate with the Bülows, and a bosom friend of Eitel and Joachim, he alone could tell you the scenes in which he figured at that time. But he will never tell you, _ami_, just as he has never told me, as neither you nor I will ever be able to pay the price of his confidences. Why, it was his silence alone that gained him the grand-ducal crown, and may one day bring him the throne of Würtemberg. When the Empress, with quivering voice, was preaching the virtue of submission to my destiny, the honest dame was only defending the honour of two of her sons. "The brain fever that followed the receipt of my father's telegram lasted a month, during which I hung between life and death, while Melusine and Hagen, with a devotion I shall never forget, took turns in nursing me night and day.