secured photographs of these places. If so,
would I give him copies?

I promised to send him prints from London. He thanked me, and there
was a pause. I wondered if this was what I had been summoned for,
and if I now ought to go. Then Nikita looked at me and suddenly
began: "I think, Mademoiselle, that you are acquainted with my
son-in-law, King Petar of Serbia."

Dear me, thought I, this is delicate ground. "I have not that
honour, Sire," I said. Now how far dare I go? I asked myself. Let us
proceed with caution. "I was in Serbia, Sire," I continued boldly,
"during the lifetime of the--er--late King Alexander." Nikita looked
at me. I looked at Nikita. Then he heaved a portentous sigh, a feat
for which his huge chest specially fitted him.

"A sad affair, was it not, Mademoiselle?" he asked. And he sighed
again.

Now or never, thought I, is the time for kite-flying. I gazed sadly
at Nikita; heaved as large a sigh as I was capable of, and said
deliberately: "Very sad, Sire--but perhaps necessary!"

The shot told. Nikita brought his hand down with a resounding smack
on his blue-knickerbockered thigh and cried aloud with the greatest
excitement: "Mon Dieu, but you are right, Mademoiselle! A thousand
times right! It was necessary, and it is you alone that understand.
Return, I beg you, to England. Explain it to your Foreign Office--to
your politicians--to your diplomatists!" His enthusiasm was
boundless and torrential. All would now be well, he assured me.
Serbia had been saved. If I would go to Belgrade all kinds of
facilities would be afforded me.

I was struck dumb by my own success. A reigning Sovereign had given
himself away with amazing completeness. I had but dangled the fly
and the salmon had gorged it. Such a big fish, too. Nikita, filled
with hopes that the result of this interview would be the resumption
<of diplomatic relations between England and Serbia, presented me
with a fine signed photograph of himself, summoned the Marshal of
the Court and instructed him to have it conveyed to the hotel. It
was not etiquette, it appeared, for me to carry such a burden
myself. The Interview was over.

It was abundantly clear that, in spite of all he had said to
journalists, the old man heartily approved of the manner of the
death of the last of the Obrenovitches, and had been "behind the
scenes" of it.

I had many subsequent interviews with Nikita, but though I strewed
many baits, never again caught him out so c