She had provided herself with funds by going to her mother’s bank and reopening the question of the deposited jewels and plate.  Now that the victory of the Allies seemed certain, the bank manager was more inclined to make things easy for her.  He had the jewels and plate valued—­roughly—­at L3,000; and although he would not surrender them till the will could be proved and she could show letters of administration, he consented on behalf of the bank to make her a loan of 30,000 francs.

On November 10th, a German soldier who followed Vivien about with humble fidelity since she had cured him of a bad whitlow—­and also because, as he said, it was a joy to speak English once more—­for he had been a waiter at the Savoy Hotel—­came to her in the Boulevard d’Anspach and said “The Red flag, lady, he fly from Kommandantur.  With us I think it is Kaput.”  This was what Vivien had been waiting for.  Asking the man to follow her, she first stopped outside a shop of military equipment, and after a brief inspection of its goods entered and purchased a short, not too flexible riding-whip, with a heavy handle.  Then as the trams were densely crowded, she walked at a rapid pace—­glancing round ever and again to see that her German soldier was following—­up the Boulevard du Jardin Botanique and along the Rue Royale until she came to the Hotel Imperial.  Here she halted for a minute to have the soldier close behind her; then gave the revolving door a turn and found herself and him in the marble hall once built for Mrs. Warren’s florid taste.  “Call the Manager,” she said—­trying not to pant—­to two Belgian servants who came up, a porter and a lift man.  The Manager—­he who had ejected her and her mother in 1915—­was fortunately a little while in appearing.  He was really packing up with energy so as to depart with all the plunder he could transport before the way of escape was closed.  This little delay enabled Vivien to get her breath and resume an impressive calm.

“Well:  what you want?” the Manager said insolently, recollecting her.

“This first,” she said, seizing him suddenly by his coat collar.

“I want—­to—­give—­you—­the—­soundest—­thrashing you have ever had...”

And before he could offer any effective resistance she had lashed him well with the riding cravache about the shoulders, hands, back and face.  He wrenched himself free and crouched ready for a counter attack.  But the Belgian servants intervened and tripped him up; and the German soldier—­the ex-waiter from the Savoy—­said that Madame was by nature so kind that there must be some good reason for this chastisement.

“There is,” she replied, now she had got her breath and was inwardly feeling ashamed at her resort to such violent methods.

“Three years ago, this creature turned my mother and myself out of this hotel with such violence that my mother died of it a few minutes afterwards.  He stole our money and much of our property.  I have inherited from my mother, to whom this hotel once belonged, a right over certain rooms which she used to occupy.  I resume that right from to-day.  I shall go to them now.  As to this wretch, throw him out on to the pavement.  He can afterwards send for his luggage, and what really is his he shall have.”