Pleased to Meet You/Chapter 8
The Cabinet, hastily summoned, met next morning in the Red Room with many controversial topics to discuss. As Herr Guadeloupe had feared, one of the puny gilt chairs proved unequal to the anxious shiftings of Herr Leutz, the obese Finance Minister. But even under Romsteck's censorious eye a broken chair was the least of the President's anxieties. Herr Leutz stayed to lunch, to discuss further details of the fiscal statements to be laid before the American ambassador, but Colonel Cointreau and Nyla were nowhere to be seen. The absence of his privy councillor, when events of such delicacy were toward, agitated Herr Guadeloupe.
The Colonel had risen that morning in the highest spirits and began his inspections with vigour. The President, who slept but ill that first night in such unaccustomed quarters, had not finished shaving when he heard cheery whistling outdoors, and observed the Genevan sculling round the moat in the old punt. The special agent appeared at the breakfast board with a somewhat miscellaneous bundle of flowers and cresses that he had picked on the grassy foreshore of the stream. These posies, apologizing for their Ophelia-like aspect, he presented to Nyla. After breakfast he made a careful tour of the house with Frau Innsbruck, inquiring into everything with the liveliest interest and humour. In the kitchen he ingratiated himself with Pigalle and made suggestions as to the menu in honour of Herr Quackenbush. Upstairs he praised the linen closets, complimented the housemaids on their thoroughness in airing the beds, and somewhat startled Nyla by the experienced domesticity of his comments. He wanted to be assured that she had enough hangers for her gowns and that her dressing table mirror was in a good light. Then, suddenly admiring the clarity and brilliance of the weather, he insisted that now was the time to make sure that the Presidential car was in good running order. He satisfied himself that the tank was filled with essence and dismissed the chauffeur. He and Nyla rolled gaily away down the avenue in the elderly but impressive limousine, on which the shield of Illyria was freshly enamelled over the erased coronet of the Grand Duke.
They had not returned by the time lunch was over, and the President was annoyed. Herr Leutz, moreover, had been a depressing companion. Like all conscientious treasures of an insolvent exchequer he had a hundred irrefutable reasons for the red ink in his ledgers: his remarks about the dangerous flatulence of the Illyrian currency were only too true. He obviously disapproved the luxury of the President's surroundings, and seemed with sombre eye to be mentally converting the Grand Ducal plate into new florins. Guadeloupe, sharpened by Colonel Cointreau into observation of such matters, noted that the Finance Minister was an untidy eater and resolved that he must not be placed too near Frau Quackenbush at the state dinner. They might have given me, he reflected bitterly, at least one Cabinet member who could be trusted to make a pleasing impression on our foreign creditors.
As he escorted Herr Leutz to the door, Guadeloupe was thinking secretly of a nap. He was weary, and would need all possible freshness for the evening. Romsteck was not visible, and the President had a mental picture of stealing upstairs, removing his boots, and stretching out for a recuperative hour. But at that moment Lorli appeared, and curtsied charmingly.
"I'm sorry, Herr President, but it's time for you and the Herr Minister to take the dancing lesson."
"Dancing lesson?" ejaculated the President. "What on earth do you mean?"
"Colonel Cointreau left positive orders that after lunch you and Herr Leutz were to practise in the ballroom."
"Impossible," said Herr Leutz, making for the door. "I have sixteen different deficits to analyze."
"Colonel Cointreau said, Herr President, that interests of state absolutely required that both you and Herr Leutz should dance with Frau Quackenbush this evening."
"Old Pannonian deities!" exclaimed Guadeloupe. "What human being can practise dancing immediately after lunch?" But there was a look of such certainty in Lorli's pretty face that he felt himself crumbling. He laid hold of Leutz's coattails.
"Here," he said sharply, "if I've got to go through with this, you must too."
"The Colonel said, the League would expect it," announced Lorli respectfully.
"Double damn the Colonel," complained the resentful President. "Why isn't he here himself to help me? He said that was what he came for. Now he's off somewhere with Nyla in the only decent car. Leutz, if he doesn't get back in time you'll have to meet Herr Quackenbush at the station, in the flivver. At any rate that will impress him with the state of our finances."
They followed Lorli like two guilty schoolboys. In the ballroom they found a determined-looking trio: Pigalle to play the piano, Frau Innsbruck to represent the Quackenbush, Romsteck to supervise. The major domo had already removed all small gilded chairs from Herr Leutz's access.
"Dancing of the ballroom sort," he said solemnly to his two pupils, "is very different from the rustic manœuvres we executed yesterday. Owing to the greater intimacy of personal contact, all the more grace of deportment is necessary. It was the Grand Duke's custom, in these affairs, always to begin by inviting any lady he specially desired to honour to accompany him in a lively fox-trot. For example."
He bowed magnificently to Frau Innsbruck, motioned to Pigalle who struck up some spirited and mischievous syncopations, and swam off with the housekeeper into a species of rotating pedestrianism with occasional sideways slidings. To the President, who was totally unfamiliar with modern dancing, it seemed completely absurd. Frau Innsbruck's solid figure, moulded on the Queen Victoria contour, floated with genteel gravity in this antic demonstration.
"So," said Romsteck, bringing the lady to port alongside the reluctant chief magistrate. "Now the Herr President and the Herr Minister are to imagine themselves entering the ballroom with their partners. The music begins, they are off."
Even in this emergency Herr Guadeloupe's presence of mind did not wholly desert him. He felt that he would learn better with Lorli, so he moved to grasp her, intending to leave the housekeeper to the embrace of Herr Leutz. But Romsteck intervened. "With Frau Innsbruck, if you please. It will be better practice. She has the mature configuration, such as we may assume Frau Quackenbush to possess."
The music seemed terribly rapid to the two pupils as they struggled to imitate what they had seen. "One, two, three and four and one, two, three and four and" counted Romsteck, pursuing them with advice. "The Herr President will control his impulse to leap and caper. Feet flat on the floor. A gliding walk, hollow back, stiff in the hips. If desired, just the least rearward oscillation of the pelvic region, to suggest enthusiasm. Not to excess however, Herr President, that would not be expected."
Innsbruck, thrilled in spite of herself by the honour of dancing with the President, tried hard to help him. He struggled nobly, with his eyes on his feet, but when he happened to catch sight of Herr Leutz's large boots shuffling miserably among Lorli's twinkling members the spectacle unnerved him. He lost count, faltered and came to a stop.
"It's too difficult," he said hopelessly. "Better for the debt settlement if I don't attempt it. I'll get Colonel Cointreau to do it for me."
"Once again, Herr President, by yourself, to get the rhythm," insisted the major domo, and Guadeloupe performed a lugubrious pas seul.
"The Herr President's trousers handicap him," commented Romsteck, walking beside him in his course and studying his morbid gyrations.
"Well I'm not going to dance without them, even for Frau Quackenbush," he retorted.
"That was not my suggestion," said Romsteck disapprovingly. "I mean that they impede by reason of their longitude. If the Herr President will permit" He rolled up several inches of the drooping tubes, and sent for some of the 1865 cognac to hearten the sufferers.
With this refreshment things went a little better. Taking advantage of a pause by Herr Leutz to mop his broad brow, the President cut in on Lorli; he found her more stimulating as a partner. Both pupils were busily treading the measure when a cheerful hail surprised them. Cointreau and Nyla entered, radiant with health and enjoyment.
"Bravo, bravo!" cried the Colonel. "Herr President, you are the soul of legerity. And the Finance Minister, treading with a toe of swan's down: like a man walking on red-hot budgets."
"Your merriment is ill-timed, Colonel," said Guadeloupe peevishly. "I thought you came tc Farniente to help me, and here you have been absent for hours when I needed you."
"You mustn't be angry, Daddy," said Nyla, looking so sunburned and pretty that no one could have been. "We got lost in the hills. The Colonel was trying to find some goldenrod, it's a favourite American flower and he thought it would be a delicate compliment to Frau Quackenbush."
"Certainly more delicate than my dancing with her would be," said the President.
"A good thing we did go," remarked Cointreau. "The car was in terrific condition. The valves need grinding, the clutch is dicky, the steering wheel's loose, and she's simply crusty with carbon. We got the goldenrod though, a whole taxi full."
"Taxi full?" asked Guadeloupe.
"Yes," Nyla explained. "You see, the car went bad at Laibach and we had to hire a cab to come home."
"From Laibach?" exclaimed the Finance Minister. "It's fifty kilometers!"
"It's quite all right, Herr Treasurer," said Cointreau hastily. "I arranged to have him send the bill to Geneva. Come then, to our affair. Music, please!"
Pigalle rippled the keys, and while the two unpromising pupils slithered heavily at their task the Colonel and Nyla hovered blithely about them, twirling humorous patterns round the small area in which the others plodded conscientiously. The pair swooped and skimmed like gulls around a group of wounded porpoises, and the indignant President, amazed at his daughter's grace, paused to watch. They danced almost as though they had been professional partners, and Cointreau, maliciously pretending himself to be Guadeloupe, called out suggestions as he and Nyla coasted to and fro. These suggestions he illustrated with appropriate action.
"Observe, Herr President, you are now dancing with Frau Quackenbush. A few perfectly simple rhythms to begin with, until Frau Quackenbush begins to enter into the spirit of the occasion.—American women are cold, and require wooing.—Then, as she begins to respond, your confidence increases.—You murmur agreeable impromptus, complimentary and insinuating, into her ear—which will not be far away.—This is your first visit to Illyria, Frau Quackenbush? We must make it memorable.—Then, venturing upon more complex figures.—Now, perhaps, when she melts a little you steer toward a quiet corner.—Surely, Frau Quackenbush, a great opulent country like yours will not be too hard on us in the matter of the debt? You will say a word in our behalf to the Ambassador?"
They came to a halt, Nyla rather flushed by the ardour the Colonel had put into his demonstration. Guadeloupe was just a little scandalized, and for a moment was the parent rather than the President.
"Here," he said sharply, "where did you learn to dance like that?"
"We practised a bit in the hotel at Laibach," she said. "While we were waiting for lunch."
Cointreau, enthusiastic as ever, was for having all the chambermaids summoned, to provide a realistic rehearsal of the evening ceremony. He also was eager that the President and Frau Innsbruck should attempt a Charleston together. But Guadeloupe had had enough.
"If Frau Quackenbush is to be melted, I leave it to you," he said.
"I should prefer to remain in the background. The League does not like its representatives to push themselves forward," said the Colonel with unexpected modesty. "Besides, I have a headache. I believe I overexerted myself testing the car. I was thinking of remaining in my room this evening."
"Heavens, No!" cried the President, aghast. "My dear Colonel, I can't get on without you. I absolutely count on you as my interpreter."
"If I appear," said Cointreau, "I think it should be in uniform. A man looks much better dancing in some regalia."
"The Grand Duke left a whole wardrobe of uniforms," said Romsteck.
"Anything with a good splash of colour in it?"
"The dress uniform as honorary admiral in the Dalmatian Navy arrived just before the War. His Grace never had an opportunity to wear it."
"True," said the Colonel. "I remember that the Dalmatian Navy spent the War prudently in drydock. I should have preferred a uniform with a more glorious record. However—blue and gold, with a cocked hat, will do very well."
"Choose whatever you like," said the President. "But remember I rely on you. And you promised to teach me a few American phrases of courtesy, that I can use when I run short."