to go behind this screen with the Young Empress and the Court
ladies. This we did, and could hear the conversation between Her
Majesty and the Ministers very plainly, and as my readers will see
later, I made good use of this.



CHAPTER THREE

A PLAY AT THE COURT

THIS day to me was a medley of brilliant impressions. I was a
great novelty among these exclusive Court ladies, brought up
rigidly apart from foreign life and customs, and I was subjected
to a rapid fire of questions. I soon found that these women were
the same as others the world over in point of curiosity and love
of gossip. The fourth daughter of Prince Ching (Sze Gurgur), a
young widow and a strikingly handsome woman, spoke to me. "Were
you brought up in Europe and educated?" she asked. "I am told that
when people go to that country and drink the water there, they
quickly forget their own country. Did you really study to acquire
all those languages or was it drinking the water that gave them to
you?" I mentioned that I met her brother, Prince Tsai Chen, in
Paris on his way to London for the coronation of King Edward, and
that we should have liked to have gone also, as my father had a
special invitation, but were prevented from doing so by his urgent
duties in Paris in settling the Yunnan question, to which the
Princess replied: "Is there a king in England? I had thought that
our Empress Dowager was Queen of the world." Her sister, wife of
the brother of the Young Empress, a most intelligent, quiet and