“Old Gray seems much as usual,” Norgate grumbled.  “One doesn’t get much out of him.”

“Chief wants you in his room,” Ansell announced.  “He’s just come in from the Palace, looking like nothing on earth.”

“Wants me?” Norgate muttered.  “Righto!”

He went to the looking-glass, straightened his tie, and made his way towards the Ambassador’s private apartments.  The latter was alone when he entered, seated before his table.  He was leaning back in his chair, however, and apparently deep in thought.  He watched Norgate sternly as he crossed the room.

“Good morning, sir,” the latter said.

The Ambassador nodded.

“What have you been up to, Norgate?” he asked abruptly.

“Nothing at all that I know of, sir,” was the prompt reply.

“This afternoon,” the Ambassador continued slowly, “I was to have taken you, as you know, to the Palace to be received by the Kaiser.  At seven o’clock this morning I had a message.  I have just come from the Palace.  The Kaiser has given me to understand that your presence in Berlin is unwelcome.”

“Good God!” Norgate exclaimed.

“Can you offer me any explanation?”

For a moment Norgate was speechless.  Then he recovered himself.  He forgot altogether his habits of restraint.  There was an angry note in his tone.

“It’s that miserable young cub of a Prince Karl!” he exclaimed.  “Last night I was dining, sir, with the Baroness von Haase at the Cafe de Berlin.”

“Alone?”

“Alone,” Norgate admitted.  “It was not for me to invite a chaperon if the lady did not choose to bring one, was it, sir?  As we were finishing dinner, the Prince came in.  He made a scene at our table and ordered me to leave.”

“And you?” the Ambassador asked.

“I simply treated him as I would any other young ass who forgot himself,” Norgate replied indignantly.  “I naturally refused to go, and the Baroness left the place with me.”

“And you did not expect to hear of this again?”

“I honestly didn’t.  I should have thought, for his own sake, that the young man would have kept his mouth shut.  He was hopelessly in the wrong, and he behaved like a common young bounder.”

The Ambassador shook his head slowly.

“Mr. Norgate,” he said, “I am very sorry for you, but you are under a misapprehension shared by many young men.  You believe that there is a universal standard of manners and deportment, and a universal series of customs for all nations.  You have our English standard of manners in your mind, manners which range from a ploughboy to a king, and you seem to take it for granted that these are also subscribed to in other countries.  In my position I do not wish to say too much, but let me tell you that in Germany they are not.  If a prince here chooses to behave like a ploughboy, he is right where the ploughboy would be wrong.”

There was a moment’s silence.  Norgate was looking a little dazed.