Once upon a time the War Lady had been sternly admonished not to bring more than three attendants on her state visit to Berlin; in repaying that visit—for his intervening comings to Essen were more or less impromptu or on business—the War Lord brought twenty times three, sixty: personal friends, courtiers, generals and army officers.
When, years before, he inflicted two-thirds of this number on King Christian, the Continent stood aghast at his inconsiderate impudence, for the Copenhagen Court was notoriously poor then. But Bertha was his ward and was under his thumb, and, besides, had "money to burn."
So he embraced this opportunity for paying off old debts by inviting to Essen a number of nobles whose hospitality he had enjoyed, for there they would be more sumptuously lodged and dined and wined than at his own house.
The call to Villa Huegel was snapped up by all who could crowd into the Imperial train, for Krupp hospitality is proverbial in the Fatherland’s mansions and country houses; and the Prussian aristocrat, living at home on superannuated venison, herrings and potatoes, washed down by diluted fusel-oil called Schnapps, likes nothing better than to gorge himself at the expense of persons whose lack of rank precludes dreaded return visits.
Savings in the household exchequer weigh heavy enough with the War Lord to put him into royal good humour, but the limelight radiating from Essen, because the richest girl on the planet married a poor but capable man, was the main thing, of course. For the Wolff Bureau, that feeds the Continental Press with "pap" about "All Highest" doings and with governmental lies, would mention Wilhelm and his myrmidons twenty times as often as the bride and groom.
There would be—as a matter of fact, there were beforehand—long-winded litanies about the War Lord’s love for his ward and his surpassing efficiency as a guardian; his consummate wisdom in the selection of a husband for Bertha; the unheard-of increase in the value of the Krupp property under Wilhelm’s guidance—columns of that sort of symphony to Imperial ears.
And the War Lord’s show: State coach and six, forty more horses from the royal stables, one hundred flunkeys, and the "great surprise!"—but that did not come off. "That woman wouldn’t stand it."