While Oskar and Karl were making their way across the Ruhr valley in the rattling Mercedes—Oskar half-asleep from emotional exhaustion, Karl chattering about cat-sand empires—the world on the other side of their destination was already busy.
Word of the prince's impending arrival had reached Villa Hügel, the Krupp family estate, hours before dawn.
And in a house where discipline ran deeper than the foundations, preparations began immediately.
Servants polished brass railings that were already shining.
Clerks straightened documents that had been straightened twice already.
Directors reviewed figures they knew by heart.
The atmosphere thrummed with a restrained, almost military tension.
For this was not an ordinary visitor.
This was Prince Oskar—the Empire's rising industrial star, the young man whose speed, ideas, and audacity were beginning to rival even the great dynasties of German steel.
And at the center of all this quiet storm, behind a closed bedroom door on the upper floor of Villa Hügel, a young woman was also preparing.
Eighteen years old.
Heiress to Europe's largest armaments empire.
Daughter of tragedy, symbol of duty, pride of a dynasty.
She had not slept well.
In fact—
Bertha Krupp had been awake since dawn.
Her maid tugged the brush gently through her long, light-brown hair, smoothing it until it shone. Another maid tightened the corset, straightened the lace chemise, and adjusted the high-collared navy-blue gown that Bertha had chosen herself — modest, dignified, but fitted enough to at least remind her she still had a woman's shape beneath the steel empire she wore like armor.
Her hands trembled slightly above her lap.
Today she was to meet Prince Oskar — not in a ballroom, not at court, but here, at the heart of her family's empire.
She swallowed.
Calm. You must look calm.
A sharp knock snapped her thoughts in half.
"Enter," Bertha said softly.
Her mother, Margarethe Krupp, swept in — tall, stern, wrapped in a dark wool shawl, her expression somewhere between impatience and maternal scrutiny. She closed the door with a decisive click.
"You're still not ready?" Margarethe said, crossing the room in quick strides. "Bertha, he will arrive any moment."
"I am almost prepared, Mutter," Bertha murmured.
Margarethe circled her like an inspector reviewing a valuable machine.
"You are not meeting some factory inspector today," her mother continued. "This is Prince Oskar. And not just any prince — the newspapers speak of him endlessly." She adjusted the collar of Bertha's gown. "Brilliant, innovative, wealthy beyond propriety already. If the pace continues, he may become the most powerful man in Germany even without the throne."
Bertha's cheeks warmed.
"I… have read the papers as well."
Margarethe paused, softening slightly.
"You are young, Bertha," she said more gently. "Too young to be the face of this company. But your father is gone. Your sister is too young. The board needs you to be steady. And the Kaiser…" She shook her head. "The Kaiser watches everything involving your future."
Bertha lowered her eyes.
Margarethe cupped her chin and lifted it.
"Remember who you are."
She began listing the titles almost like a prayer:
"You are Bertha Krupp, sole heiress of Friedrich Krupp AG. The company survives because your signature holds it together. The workers look to your family name. The Empire relies on our steel." Her gaze hardened. "Do not break."
Bertha inhaled.
"Ja, Mutter."
"Good." Margarethe stepped back. "You will meet Prince Oskar outside. Be pleasant. Be polite. Smile — but not too much. Make him feel welcomed, important, valued. A prince's mood shapes negotiations."
The maid finished pinning Bertha's braided bun with a silver clasp.
Margarethe continued:
"Walk him through the front building yourself. Then bring him to my office. The board and I will handle the business discussions. Your task is simple: ease him into the meeting. Lighten his mood. Make a good impression."
Bertha nodded again.
In truth, her heart was hammering so loudly she was certain her mother could hear it.
Margarethe stepped toward the door, then glanced back once more.
"And Bertha," she added, voice softer, "you may be shy, but you are a Krupp. Hold your head high. Even a prince must see the steel in you."
Then she left.
The door closed.
Bertha remained still for a long breath, staring at herself in the mirror.
Steel in her.
Yes… she hoped so.
But beneath the gown, beneath the corset, beneath the weight of legacy—
Her stomach fluttered like a girl about to meet a handsome young prince for the first time.
She smoothed her gloves, straightened her posture, lifted her chin the way her governess had drilled into her.
A servant knocked.
"Fräulein Bertha, the Mercedes from Berlin has arrived."
Bertha felt her pulse spike.
She stepped out into the cold morning air, descending the stone steps with controlled grace. Ahead of her stood the dark-brick administration building, proud and imposing — the fortress she was born to represent.
And at the base of the drive, the car slowed, engine purring like a steel beast.
She adjusted her gloves one last time.
Folded her hands neatly.
Lifted her chin.
And waited for Prince Oskar to step out.
___
From Oskar's perspective, the world of Krupp began with stone and silence.
The Mercedes rolled to a halt at the base of the broad steps leading up to the main building. The engine coughed once, then settled into a low idle.
Oskar didn't open the door.
He stared out the window instead, eyes unfocused.
In his head he was still in the palace—still in the bathtub, Tanya sobbing against his chest, Anna kneeling on the floor, the bite marks burning on his collarbone, the shame heavy across his ribs.
Business with Krupp was the last thing he wanted to think about.
Karl, unfortunately, had eyes like a hawk.
He squinted up at Oskar's face.
"…Your Highness," he said slowly, "why do you have claw marks on your cheek?"
Oskar blinked, reached up, and winced when his fingers brushed the tender skin.
"Oh," he muttered. "That."
Karl's eyes widened briefly, then he exhaled like someone who'd just seen a puzzle piece click into place.
"A fight with Tanya, then," Karl said, nodding sagely. "Women."
Oskar scowled.
Karl, encouraged, kept going.
"Don't worry," he added. "You can hardly see it. And if anyone does notice, just say you were attacked by a tiger at the zoo. People will believe anything that comes out of your mouth. You have the reputation for it."
Oskar groaned and covered his face with his hands.
Karl scrambled up onto the seat and patted one of Oskar's massive shoulders like he was comforting a distressed bear.
"Listen," Karl said in a lower, more serious tone. "She's a maid. She can be furious, dramatic, emotional—yes. But she also knows that, without you, she has nothing. And she knows that, under normal circumstances, hitting a prince would be a death sentence."
Oskar's head snapped up.
"Karl—"
Karl held up a small hand.
"Don't misunderstand me, Your Highness," he said. "I like Tanya. She's spirited, dutiful, and very pretty. But she is still an orphan who, thanks to the palace and her looks, was lifted into the position she holds now. Without you, without this palace, she falls very hard, very fast. That's the harsh truth. But it is truth."
He smoothed his coat with the air of a man delivering a verdict.
"When you return tonight," Karl went on, "she will almost certainly want to make peace. They always do when they realize what they've risked. She knows she overstepped by hitting you. But women—especially young ones—tend to act from feeling first and only then think. So forgive her. She's not a monster. She's just a young woman in love with a man who could ruin her whole life with a single word."
Oskar stared at him.
Annoyed.
And yet…
He couldn't deny the logic.
He was not the man he had been.
Not the Chinese truck driver dodging drones and cursing at traffic.
Here, now, he was:
Prince Oskar von Preußen.
Nearly two meters tall.
Built like a war god.
Beloved by newspapers and crowds.
And back at the palace, two women depended on him utterly—for income, protection, future, and reputation.
Whether he wanted that power or not, he had it.
He felt some of the ice in his chest melt just a little.
Karl saw it and grinned.
"There," he said triumphantly. "Better? You should feel better. You're Prince Oskar. You don't fear women—women fear losing you."
Oskar let out a short, crooked laugh despite himself.
Then, in a sudden wave of affection, he hooked an arm around Karl's middle and hauled him into a quick, crushing hug.
Karl wheezed, then wrapped his short arms around Oskar's neck like a drowning man clinging to a tree trunk.
"You're the best man I've ever met, Your Highness," Karl declared dramatically. "Tanya would be insane to let go of you."
Oskar set him back on the seat, straightened his own uniform jacket, and took a deep breath.
"…Thank you, Karl. Truly."
He reached for the door handle, thumb resting briefly on the cold metal.
Time to be a prince.
Outside, the stone steps of Krupp were waiting.
And somewhere up there, so was Bertha.
Oskar opened the door and stepped out.
The driver — the same young man as always — very deliberately kept his eyes forward and expression blank, as if he had definitely not just listened to a Hohenzollern prince confess, in the back seat, to a complicated love life involving his maid. He simply let them go with a resigned little sigh.
Karl hopped out behind Oskar, walking with the smug confidence of a tiny general marching alongside his personal Titan.
At the foot of the stone stairs, Bertha Krupp froze.
She had spent the whole morning preparing—
And still, nothing had prepared her for the reality of Prince Oskar emerging from the car.
He was huge.
Broad shoulders filling his dark Prussian uniform.
Back straight, jaw sharp, presence radiating that peculiar mixture of military bearing and something… wilder.
Even the winter wind seemed to bend around him rather than push against him.
Bertha's breath caught.
Up close, he noticed her too:
round, slightly long face,
fair skin touched by the cold,
a bit taller than the petite maids he was used to,
moderate, natural curves hidden beneath a well-cut navy gown,
calm blue eyes that now betrayed an unmistakable flicker of nerves.
She wasn't precisely his type—
Not like Tanya's petite spark or Anna's quiet motherliness.
But that wasn't what he had come here for anyway.
He shifted smoothly into Prussian Prince Mode, took a step forward, and stopped a courteous pace in front of her.
Even from there he could catch a hint of her perfume: soft rosewater under the cold air.
She had to tilt her chin up—far up—to meet his eyes.
Their gazes locked.
For the first time in her carefully disciplined life, Bertha's composure wavered.
Then he spoke trying to sound cool.
His voice was deep, rough-edged, with a natural authority that hit her spine like a physical touch.
"Hm…" he said, the corners of his mouth lifting in a faint, confident smile. "Seeing how beautiful you are, you must be Miss Bertha Krupp. I hope we didn't keep you waiting long."
Behind him, Karl quietly facepalmed.
Bertha's whole face ignited.
Her mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
Then everything came out at once.
"Y–yo–Your Highness, I— it is— I mean, the honor is— thank you— you look— very…"
Her cheeks flared scarlet.
"…handsome."
She wanted the ground to swallow her whole.
But she forced herself to dip her head in a small, formal greeting.
"On behalf of the entire Krupp enterprise," she tried again, voice shaking, "I welcome you. You are… considered by many to be a business genius without precedent, Your Highness. It is truly an honor to receive you."
Her words were perfectly formal.
Her voice was not.
Her blush was beyond subtle; even a blind mole would have sensed it.
Oskar's smile softened into something more restrained. He nodded.
"The honor is mine, Miss Krupp."
Karl, standing slightly behind, relaxed. Despite the prince's… bold opening line, the heiress hadn't fainted or run. Good enough.
This young woman, Oskar reminded himself, was not just some industrial heiress; she was effectively the Queen of Steel, even if, in reality, her mother and the board handled most daily operations.
Bertha turned gracefully and gestured toward the entrance.
"If Your Highness will follow me," she said, voice steadier now, "I will show you our main building before we join my mother and the directors."
They moved up the steps together.
As they passed through the high, arched doorway, the world changed.
Where the Hohenzollern palaces were warm and ornate—gold leaf, portraits, soft carpets—Krupp headquarters were cold and exacting.
Literally cold.
Bertha noticed him glance at the bare fireplaces as they walked.
"Company tradition," she explained, a hint of pride in her tone. "We do not light fires in the offices in winter. It is believed warmth makes men sluggish. Cold keeps the mind sharp."
"Ah," Oskar murmured. "Very… invigorating."
Clocks ticked on the walls with relentless precision, each second cutting cleanly through the cold air.
Employees moved briskly through the corridors, ledgers tucked under their arms, rolled diagrams in hand, their boots barely whispering against the polished floors.
Not a scrap of paper lay out of place.
No desk bore anything resembling personal life.
Ink bottles stood in regimented rows.
Pens lay aligned like a parade of steel soldiers awaiting inspection.
Display cases punctuated the hallways—miniatures and models of Krupp's creations:
naval guns,
field pieces,
railway springs,
forged wheels,
perfect steel samples polished like gemstones.
One case even held an early breech-loaded cannon model, the innovation that once shocked European armies when the Krupp family realized loading from the rear was faster, safer, and deadlier than feeding rounds into a muzzle. A small idea that had changed warfare.
In a side hall, Oskar's gaze snagged on a large oil painting: the enormous 907-kilogram steel ingot Krupp had unveiled at the Great Exhibition in London in 1851. The brushwork glorified it like a national treasure—smooth, gleaming, monolithic.
"Father liked that one," Bertha said softly when she noticed where his eyes had gone. "He said it was the moment the world understood that steel would belong to us… whether they liked it or not."
Oskar smiled faintly.
His mind stirred with old knowledge.
In his previous life, he had read about them:
a small merchant in Essen buying plague-cleared land
→ a blacksmith's shop
→ then steel
→ then cannons
→ then rails from America to Russia built with Krupp steel.
He looked at Bertha as she pointed out each artifact with quiet pride, and realized something else:
In the old history, this wasn't the first time a woman had stood at the head of this family. There had been others—widows, mothers—who held the name together until the next strong man could be found.
But looking at some of the older portraits on the walls… and at the repeated patterns of Hohenzollern chins and Krupp eyebrows intermixing through careful marriages…
It was also painfully obvious just how much intermarrying had been going on. His truck-driver brain muttered something about gene pools that would make Karl's father explode if he said it out loud.
They walked on.
No wasted decoration.
No excess staff.
Everything efficient.
Everything disciplined.
If the Hohenzollerns ruled Germany politically,
the Krupps ruled it mechanically.
Even Karl, usually hard to impress when not counting money, kept looking around with wide eyes.
His short legs, however, struggled to keep pace with Bertha's longer stride and Oskar's easy march. After a few minutes, Oskar glanced back, saw Karl's determined little trot, and rolled his eyes affectionately.
He reached back, hooked an arm around Karl's waist, and hoisted him up onto his shoulders in one smooth motion.
Karl squawked.
"Your Highness—!"
"Quiet, my man," Oskar said calmly. "This is efficiency."
Bertha glanced back at the sound of Karl's indignant squawk—and barely managed not to laugh.
The sight really was absurd: the enormous prince striding through Krupp's icy halls with a dwarf accountant perched on his shoulders like a tiny general inspecting the troops. It was like something out of a children's story someone had forgotten to make realistic.
Her lips twitched before she could stop them.
She forced the smile down, schooling her face back into polite composure.
Oskar saw it.
And it warmed him more than the entire building had managed so far.
In his previous life, whenever he did stupid gaming videos—raging, joking, acting like a fool—what he loved most were the messages from people saying:
> "You made my day a bit better."
Seeing Bertha smile, even just for a heartbeat, felt like that again.
She had to be under enormous pressure—young, carrying a dynasty, constantly watched. If he could make a woman like that smile, even slightly, then maybe he was doing something right.
He let himself enjoy it for a second.
Then his mind returned to the surroundings.
Overall, Oskar was impressed by the building. His inner reincarnated engineer whispered:
Ah… true German industrial spirit.
His Chinese history nerd side nodded approval:
Efficient, disciplined, high quality. Very Krupp.
His fantasy gamer side, however, sulked at the lack of cool artifacts.
A skull of a mountain-sized dragon on the wall would have been bad ass, it muttered.
Instead, there were models of guns, rails, springs, and that famous massive ingot from 1851.
He also quietly noted the cold.
From a romantic point of view, "no fires in winter to prevent laziness" sounded heroic.
From a practical, modern hygiene point of view, he thought darkly:
You're just inviting mold, respiratory problems and a future renovation nightmare, my man. I should probably warn them later.
As they walked, he kept studying Bertha.
She was not flamboyant like court princesses.
Not flirtatious.
Not dramatic.
She was:
dignified,
reserved,
thoughtful,
clearly aware of the weight on her shoulders,
…and maybe just a little shy whenever his eyes happened to meet hers.
She reminded him more of a quiet, serious accountant than a steel baroness—but there was no mistaking the steady power behind her gaze. It was the look of someone who, with a single agreed signature, could set the German war machine in motion.
After the short tour, Bertha led them to what Oskar had assumed would be her office—a large but modest room with maps, industrial diagrams, and black-and-white photographs of smoking factories and steelworks. No gilt. No velvet. Just industry and numbers.
Except for now, it was already occupied.
Several senior staff members sat or stood around a heavy desk. Behind it, rising as they entered, was a woman in a dark dress, older than Bertha but with the same bone structure, the same disciplined posture, the same steel in the eyes.
Bertha bowed her head and stepped aside to stand by the wall.
Her mother, Oskar realized.
He knew only vague storybook lines: that Friedrich Krupp had died in scandal, that there had been whispers of Capri and men, that the official story had called it a heart attack. Behind that, he knew that this woman, Margarethe, had quietly held everything together while her daughter grew into the role the world had forced on her.
"Your Highness," Bertha's mother said politely as the attendants closed the doors behind them, "welcome to Villa Hügel. I am Margarethe Freiin von Ende. May I ask what brings you here today?"
Her tone was calm, direct, businesslike.
She, too, had to tilt her head back slightly to meet his eyes—but there was nothing flirtatious or uncertain in her gaze. She was not a girl with a crush; she was a guardian of an empire.
Oskar smiled, lifted Karl down from his shoulders, and stepped forward.
"I am here, Miss Krupp," he said with a courteous nod, "to place an order."
Her eyebrows rose just a fraction—trained not to move too much.
"An order? From the Krupp Company?" she echoed. "What might Your Highness require?"
An attendant pulled out a chair at the side of the desk for Oskar. When he sat, the furniture creaked faintly but held, as if Krupp steel had secretly reinforced the legs. Another chair was brought for Karl, whose feet dangled several inches above the floor.
Oskar crossed one leg over the other with princely ease.
"I have recently acquired the Royal Shipyard in Danzig," he said, "and renamed it Deutsche Werke—German Works. We plan to begin ship construction in the second half of the year." He let that sink in. "For that, I will need approximately 80,000 tons of steel—of which 20,000 tons must be the highest quality armor steel you can produce."
The room froze.
Bertha's eyes widened.
Margarethe's composure faltered for the first time.
Several of the staff glanced at one another.
Karl, meanwhile, smiled like a small devil behind the ledger.
Oskar simply held their gaze and smiled back.
The prince had come to Krupp.
And he wasn't thinking small.
The shock in the room lasted only a heartbeat.
It was the first real crack in Margarethe's composure. Numbers impressed her more than titles; eighty thousand tons of steel spoke louder than any "Your Highness."
"…Eighty thousand tons…?" she repeated slowly. "And twenty thousand of that armor-grade?"
She realized, in that instant, what she had casually written to Karl in the earlier letters:
> We will, of course, offer Your Highness the best price for steel and armor.
At these quantities, "best price" meant millions in profit sacrificed.
A faint color touched her cheeks.
But she was Margarethe Krupp.
She did not take promises back—certainly not to the royal house.
She straightened.
"Of course, Your Highness," she said crisply. "Krupp will honor the price I quoted in my correspondence with your attendant, Karl von Jonarett."
Oskar had no idea what price that was, but he smiled as if everything were exactly according to plan. He patted Karl's shoulder lightly—good job, my little man—then looked back at Margarethe.
"Your integrity is admirable, Miss Krupp," he said.
The older woman allowed herself the faintest smile. Her assistants were already scribbling down every number, every word.
Bertha, standing slightly behind and to the side, felt a blush creep into her face again. Watching Prince Oskar handle her mother—a woman Bertha herself rarely dared contradict—with such calm confidence… it impressed her more than she wanted to admit.
Margarethe cleared her throat.
"Nevertheless, Your Highness," she said, "for such quantities… I must ask. The Royal Shipyard in Danzig is, as I understand, a medium-sized facility. Your helmet designs for this Hans Albrecht may be clever, but how can such a small yard require so much steel?"
Oskar's smile widened.
"The Royal Shipyard was medium-sized," he said pleasantly. He folded his hands on his knee. "Deutsche Werke will not be."
Karl puffed up like a proud rooster.
"Indeed," he cut in. "Thanks to His Majesty's loan and His Highness's own fortune, we have already invested over one hundred million marks into expansion. New slipways, full modern steelworks, drydocks, mechanization—Deutsche Werke will soon be the most capable shipyard in Germany. All based on Prince Oskar's designs."
For the first time, Margarethe genuinely looked impressed.
"…Your Highness is… bold," she said quietly. "And visionary. Such investment is not for the faint of heart."
Oskar steepled his fingers in front of his chest and let his voice drop.
"Warships never are."
The word hung in the air.
Warships.
Until now, Margarethe had assumed merchant tonnage, perhaps liners or small naval auxiliaries. "Warships" meant something very different: armor, guns, and the kind of steel that decided the fates of nations.
Her blue eyes sharpened.
Slowly, she nodded.
"Germany needs men who think like that," she said.
Oskar smiled.
"And Germany also needs," he went on, loosening his coat, "equipment worthy of those warships."
From an inner pocket he drew a thick bundle of folded papers and laid them carefully on the desk between them.
"For our men in the Navy to succeed," he said, trying to wear a professor's face and mostly failing, "we must… increase their power."
He paused a fraction longer than was polite.
"Give them equipment that's really big. Harder, girthier and longer. With real… staying force."
Several staff members shifted in their seats.
He continued with absolute princely seriousness:
"In short, if we expect our sailors to stand proud on deck, Germany needs guns with longer range, more powerful shell's, far more firepower overall, massive naval guns."
There was a heartbeat of stunned silence.
Karl closed his eyes.
Margarethe's expression flickered; Bertha went scarlet. A few of the older men looked down at their notes with very intense interest, as if trying to decide whether they had just heard the most embarrassing metaphor of their careers.
Then Margarethe flipped open the top page—
And all the innuendo vanished.
Drawn by hand in crisp, confident strokes were triple-mounted 305mm, 50-caliber naval guns—brutal and elegant all at once. The lines were so clear and proportioned they looked halfway between a technical drawing and a piece of art.
Bertha leaned forward despite herself.
"Your Highness…" she breathed. "Did you… draw these yourself?"
Oskar turned his head toward her and nodded with quiet pride.
"Of course," he said. "Back in China, they sometimes called me by another name than Zhan Ge. In class they called me Dàshī bǐ—'master pen.'"
The room went very still.
Eleven German faces turned toward him at once.
Karl slowly lowered his hand from his face.
Here we go again, his eyes said.
"…Your Highness," Karl cut in quickly, standing up on his chair so he could reach the edge of the desk. "What His Highness means is that, he has studied old Chinese references to a three-eyed gun—an early firearm with three barrels. Our design here is essentially a modern 'three-eyed' gun for ships: a triple mount."
He slid the drawings around so the others could see, tracing the turret outline with a fingertip.
"You see? Three barrels in a single housing. Efficient. Concentrated firepower. And as you will notice"—he tapped the margins—"His Highness's sketches are very precise. They're almost self-explanatory."
He allowed himself a little smile.
"The overall concept, proportions, and layout are all from His Highness's hand. The written notes," he added tactfully, "are largely mine. Prince Oskar's spoken German has improved greatly." He cleared his throat. "His handwriting, however, still wages its own private war against the language."
A faint ripple of amusement passed through the room, easing the tension.
Oskar, mentally slapping himself for mentioning "class in China" out loud again, did his best to wear the neutral mask of a man who had absolutely never grown up anywhere but Prussia.
Margarethe bent over the sheets again, frown deepening—not with disapproval, but with concentration.
"But this…" she murmured. "Triple-mounted, 305mm, and fifty calibers long… this is beyond our current production range."
Her gaze lifted back to them.
"How can we possibly produce such a thing now?"
Karl spread his hands.
"It may be beyond what you currently build," he said, "but it is not beyond what you can build. Krupp has the finest artillery masters in Europe. This is the logical next step in naval gunnery. And we're not asking you to leap blindly into the dark."
He pointed to the margins again.
"Here you have the key parameters: material grades, inner structure, recoil absorption, machining tolerances. Think of it as a recipe. A demanding one, yes. But if anyone can follow—and improve—it, it is Krupp."
One by one, the men around the table leaned in again.
Figures. Angles. Steel specs. Barrel linings. Rifling patterns. Recoil values.
You could feel them beginning to see it:
A gun that outranged the British.
A turret that put more steel on target, faster, than any current ship afloat.
A step not sideways, but forward into the next era.
Margarethe's eyes gleamed now with a mixture of caution and undeniable excitement.
"…Your Highness," she said at last, "if we accept this order, it will mark a new chapter in Krupp's artillery work."
Oskar leaned forward slightly.
"This is a new chapter for Germany," he said. "Miss Margarethe."
He caught himself before "my woman" slipped out; the word died clumsily in his throat. Her mouth twitched—whether at the sentiment or the almost-slip, it was hard to tell—but she straightened in her chair.
"…Then," she said, "let us write it together."
Karl sank back into his seat and let out a long, silent breath of relief.
So far, against the odds, the day was going much better than the morning had any right to allow.