Our conversations were in the style of the reception, short and quickly done with.

MRS. HILL:  “This is Madame de Hegermann.  She is American, from Cambridge, Massachusetts.”

MR. ROOSEVELT:  “Ah!...  I am a Harvard man.”

ME:  “So am I!  I mean I am a Harvard woman!  I was born and brought up in Radcliffe College.”

MR. R.:  “Ah!” (Puzzled, trying to match the possible date of my birth with the birth of Radcliffe College.)

ME:  “Radcliffe College was my grandparents’ home.”

MR. R.:  “Oh, I see!  Well, madame, I am delighted to shake hands with any one from Cambridge.”

Johan’s was like this: 

MRS. HILL:  “Monsieur de Hegermann was Danish Minister in Washington some years ago.”

MR. R.:  “I am sorry I was not President then.  Ha! ha!  Pleased to have met you, sir!”

We were told that there would be speeches under the flag, but we poured out without anything of the kind occurring.

BERLIN, 1912.

Dear L.,—­It is not only the unexpected that arrives:  the expected arrives also.

The news we have been expecting these last years arrived yesterday.

Diplomacy has decided to divorce us.

We are to leave Berlin.

Johan ought to have left the service four years ago.  According to the protocole in Denmark, a Minister must retire when he reaches the d’age limite—­the Ambassador retiring at the age of seventy.

The Prime Minister asked him to remain, and he did.  But now it seems that the powers that be have decided.

It is very sad, but true.

Countess Brockdorf came to make me a visit of condolence.  She said that her Majesty had begged her to express her regrets.  In the course of the visit she asked me when my book[4] would come out, and when I told her that I thought in October she said, “I know that the Emperor is counting on your giving him a copy.”  I promised that I would not forget it.

      [4] In the Courts of Memory, published in the autumn of
      1912.

* * * * *

On the day fixed for Johan’s audience to present his letters of recall we were invited to luncheon at Neues Palais with their Majesties.  At Wildpark, the Emperor’s private station, a few miles from Potsdam, we were met by his carriage and drove through the beautiful park to the palace.  The carriage stopped at the principal entrance, where a broad red carpet was stretched from the carriage-drive to the door.  Johan got out there.  Then I was driven to the other side of the palace, where I found another red carpet.  This was the entrance which leads to the Empress’s suite of apartments.

Countess Keller (the lady of honor) was waiting for me and led me to the Empress.