I intended to return at once to Loschwitz, but the King, hearing of my intention and not wishing to provoke another scene, invited my father to come to Dresden "in the interests of his daughter."
The same evening I received a wire from papa, saying that he would be in Dresden within twenty-four hours.
My own arrival in the capital was kept secret by the King"s order, but next afternoon, when I drove to the station to welcome my father, I got my reception just the same. The people wildly cheered their Crown Princess and thousands of sympathizing eyes followed me from the palace to the depot.
I was almost overcome by so much sympathy and when at last I saw father, I threw myself on his neck, crying aloud.
The King was standing by, impatiently waiting to conduct his grand-ducal guest before the guard of honor had drawn up. "Later, later," whispered papa, patting me on the cheek.
DRESDEN, _June 22, 1902_.
I had an hour"s talk with father. I bared my heart to him. I reported my own faults along with those of the others.
Papa understands me. He sympathizes with me, but help me he cannot.
"These are only pa.s.sing shadows," he said. "Look boldly into the future.
You will soon be Queen."
And he told me of his financial difficulties and of the misfortune of being a sovereign lord without either land or money.
"The Emperor ordered me to scold you hard," he continued, "and mamma wants me to be very severe. As to King George, he said he would thank G.o.d if I succeeded in breaking your rebellious spirit. "If you don"t, I will," added his Majesty."
Then father kissed me more lovingly than ever and asked, half apologetically: "Is it true, Louise, that you had a lover?"
"I thought I had one, but he was unworthy of me," I replied without shame.
My confession seemed to frighten him.
"It"s sad, sad," he said. "Royal blood is dangerous juice. It brought Mary of Scots to the scaffold; it caused your great-aunt Marie Antoinette to lose her head, only to save the old monarchies a few years later, when we inveigled the enemy of legitimate kingship into a marriage with another of your relatives. But for Marie, Louise, the descendants of the Corsican might still sit on a dozen thrones."
Father forgot his daughter"s disgrace when he mounted this historic hobby-horse and, needless to say, I did not recall the original text.
Only when, three days later, he took leave of me, holding my head long between his two trembling hands and kissing me again and again, I felt that the poor, old man"s heart was oppressed with shame and torn by fears.
CHAPTER LVIII
MONSIEUR GIRON--RICHARD, THE ARTIST
The King asks me to superintend lessons by M. Giron--A most fascinating man--His Grecian eyes--He is a painter as well as a teacher--In love--Careless whether I am caught in my lover"s arms--"Richard" talks anarchy to me--Why I don"t believe in woman suffrage--Characters and doings of women in power.
DRESDEN, _July 1, 1902_.
King George is determined I shall stay in Dresden to end the newspaper talk about trouble in the bosom of the royal family.
He engaged a new head-tutor for my little brood. Monsieur Giron, a Belgian of good family.
"I would be pleased if you attended the children"s lessons and reported to me on the method of the new man," he said. "You are so intellectual, Louise, you will find out quickly if M. Giron is not what he is represented to be."
I promised, for, after all, I owed so much to the King and my children.
Alas, it was fate!
DRESDEN, _July 1, After Midnight_.
He is tall, well made, and his wild, Grecian eyes fascinate me. He is conscious of self, but modest. His voice is sweet and sonorous, his eyes are bright with intellect. Speaking eyes!
I asked him to visit my apartments at the conclusion of school hours. He told me he was a painter as well as a teacher of languages.
"Would you like to paint me?"
"I am dying for a chance to reproduce your loveliness as far as my poor art permits."
He told me he had a studio in town, where he is known under his artist"s _pseudonyme_, Richard.
"How romantic! I"d like to see it," I said impulsively.
"Several ladies and gentlemen of society sat for portraits at my studio here and at home."
In short we arranged that he paint my picture and that I should go to his studio, where the light is excellent.
DRESDEN, _July 15, 1902_.
I am happy once more. Those hours at Richard"s studio are the sweetest of my life.
Lucretia acts the protecting angel as usual. Richard calls her Justice because she is "blind." When she is along, I drive boldly up to the door in one of the court carriages. Sometimes, when I can sneak out of the palace for a little while un.o.bserved, I go alone in a cab.
How long this sort of thing can go on without discovery, I know not. As to what will happen afterwards, I care not.
If I was told that tomorrow I would be caught in my lover"s arms and banished to a lone island for life, I would go to his studio just the same.
DRESDEN, _August 1, 1902_.
Richard is moulding my character. I, once so proud of rank and station, I, who upheld the Wettiners" robbery of a poor, defenseless woman, the Duke"s wife, because Socialistic papers spoke in her favor,--Louise now allows anarchistic tendencies to be poured in her ears. She almost applauds them.
This easy change from one extreme to the other at a lover"s behest is one of the things that make woman"s rule--or co-rule--as the male"s political equal--impossible. It"s a sort of _Phallus_ worship that always was and always will be.
"Though women have not unfrequently been the holders of temporary and precarious power, there are not many instances where they have held secure and absolute dominion," says Dr. William W. Ireland in his famous "Blot upon the Brain."