“Henry returned at 1 a.m. and came to say good night to me:  he generally said his prayers by my bedside.  He told me that St. John Brodrick’s motion to reduce C. B.’s salary by L100 had turned the Government out; that Rosebery had resigned and gone straight down to Windsor; that Campbell-Bannerman was indignant and hurt; that few of our men were in the House; and that Akers Douglas, the Tory Whip, could not believe his eyes when he handed the figures to Tom Ellis, our chief Whip, who returned them to him in silence.

“The next morning St. John Brodrick came to see me, full of excitement and sympathy.  He was anxious to know if we minded his being instrumental in our downfall; but I am so fond of him that, of course, I told him that I did not mind, as a week sooner or later makes no difference and St. John’s division was only one out of many indications in the House and the country that our time was up.  Henry came back from the Cabinet in the middle of our talk and shook his fist in fun at ‘our enemy.’  He was tired, but good-humoured as ever.

“At 3:30 Princess Helene d’Orleans came to see me and told me of her engagement to the Due d’Aosta.  She looked tall, black and distinguished.  She spoke of Prince Eddy to me with great frankness.  I told her I had sometimes wondered at her devotion to one less clever than herself.  At this her eyes filled with tears and she explained to me how much she had been in love and the sweetness and nobility of his character.  I had reason to know the truth of what she said when one day Queen Alexandra, after talking to me in moving terms of her dead son, wrote in my Prayer Book: 

“Man looketh upon the countenance, but God upon the heart.

“Helene adores the Princess of Wales [Footnote:  Queen Alexandra.] but not the Prince! [Footnote:  King Edward VII.] and says the latter’s rudeness to her brother, the Duc d’Orleans, is terrible.  I said nothing, as I am devoted to the Prince and think her brother deserves any ill-treatment he gets.  I asked her if she was afraid of the future:  a new country and the prospect of babies, etc.  She answered that d’Aosta was so genuinely devoted that it would make everything easy for her.

“‘What would you do if he were unfaithful to you?’ I asked.

“Princess Helene:  ’Oh!  I told Emanuel. ...  I said, “You see?  I leave you ...  If you are not true to me, I instantly leave you,” and I should do so at once.’

“She begged me never to forget her, but always to pray for her.

“‘I love you,’ she said, ‘as every one else does’; and with a warm embrace she left the room.

“She came of a handsome family:  Blowitz’s famous description,’de loin on dirait un Prussien, de pres un imbecile,’ was made of a near relation of the Duchesse d’Aosta.”

With the fall of the Government my diary of that year ceases to have the smallest interest.

CHAPTER IX