The Baroness put out her arm as if she expected the children to resort to fisticuffs. "Barbara," she called half pleadingly.
"She will go to her room," insisted Bertha, ringing. The butler responded so promptly that there was no doubt he had been listening behind the portières.
"Fraulein Barbara’s governess," Bertha ordered. And as the man was going out: "My secretary shall report at once in my council room."
"Are you mad?" cried Frau Krupp, when the curtains had dropped behind the servant. Bertha seemed so unlike herself—unlike what her child ought to be.
"Since I am to be their Imperial and Royal Majesties’ guest, I must prepare for the honour," she deigned after a little while; "in half an hour I’ll leave for Cologne. You may accompany me, if you like, Mother."
The Baroness grew white under the lash of Bertha’s patronising tone. "You shall not go," she said hotly.
"If you will come to the council room you can see in black and white my authority to go where and when I please," replied Bertha, going out.
Barbara and her mother looked at each other in blank amazement, the child not understanding, the mother understanding but too well. Bertha was lost to her; the supreme egotist had gained a strangle-hold on her flesh and blood.
With the strange intuition that often moves children to do the right thing at the right time when grown-ups are at their wits’ end, Barbara seemed to divine what passed in her mother’s mind and, burying her face in the Baroness’s lap, she sobbed out convulsively words of consolation, of endearment and unbounded affection. Frau Krupp bent over the child’s head and kissed her again and again. "My little girl, my Barbara, won’t discard Mother, will she?" she said in broken tones.
"Not for ten thousand Uncle Majesties," cried Barbara fiercely; and, as if the words had freed her from a spell, she rose of a sudden and planted herself in front of Frau Krupp.
"—— Uncle Majesty," she said, clenching her little fists.
Then, overcome by her breach of the conventions, she ran out of the room and into the arms of her governess.
Frau Krupp would not have had the heart to scold Barbara even if she had not run away. "—— him!"—her own sentiments. With such reflections she leaned back in her great arm-chair, undecided whether she should follow Bertha to the council room or not. Her motherly dignity said "No," while anxiety for her child urged her to go to her.