# Royal Highness/Chapter 7

Fräulein von Isenschnibbe had been well informed. On the very evening of the day on which she had brought the Princess zu Reid the great news, the Courier published the announcement of Samuel Spoelmann's, the world-renowned Spoelmann's, impending arrival, and ten days later, at the beginning of October (it was the October of the year in which Grand Duke Albrecht had entered his thirty-second and Prince Klaus Heinrich his twenty-sixth year), thus barely giving time for public curiosity to reach a really high point, this arrival became a fact, a plain actuality on an autumn-tinged, entirely ordinary week-day, which was destined to impress itself on the future as a date to be remembered for ever.
The Spoelmanns arrived by special train—that was the only distinction about their debut to start with, for everybody knew that the "Prince's suite" in the "Spa Court" Hotel was by no means dazzlingly magnificent. A few idlers, guarded by a small detachment of policemen, had gathered behind the platform barriers; some representatives of the press were present. But whoever expected anything out of the ordinary was disappointed. Sooelmann would almost have passed unrecognized, he was so unimposing. For a long time people took his family physician for him (Doctor Watercloose, people said he was called), a tall American, who wore his hat on the back of ​his head and kept his mouth distended in a perpetual smile between his close-trimmed white whiskers, the while he half-closed his eyes. It was not till the last moment that people learned that it was the little clean shaven man in the faded overcoat, he who wore his hat pulled down over his eyes, who was the actual Spoelmann, and the spectators were agreed that there was nothing striking about him. All sorts of stories had been in circulation about him; some witty fellow had spread the report that Spoelmann had front teeth of solid gold and a diamond set in the middle of each. But although the truth or untruth of this report could not be tested at once—for Spoelmann did not show his teeth, he did not laugh, but rather seemed angry and irritated by his infirmity—yet when they saw him nobody was any longer inclined to believe it.
As for Miss Spoelmann, his daughter, she had turned up the collar of her fur coat, and stuffed her hands in the pockets, so that there was hardly anything to be seen of her except a pair of disproportionately big brown-black eyes, which swept the crowd with a serious look whose meaning it was hard to interpret. By her side stood the person whom the onlookers identified as her companion, the Countess Löwenjoul, a woman of thirty-five, plainly dressed and taller than either of the Spoelmanns, who carried her little head with its thin smooth hair pensively on one side, and kept her eyes fixed in front of her with a kind of rigid meekness. What without question attracted most attention was a Scottish sheep-dog which was led on a cord by a stolid-looking servant—an exceptionally handsome, but, as it appeared, terribly excitable beast, that leaped and danced and filled the station with its frenzied barking.
People said that a few of Spoelmann's servants, male and female, had already arrived at the "Spa Court" some ​hours before. At any rate it was left to the servant with the dog to look after the luggage by himself; and while he was doing so his masters drove in two ordinary flies—Mr. Spoelmann with Doctor Watercloose, Miss Spoelmann with the Countess—to the Spa Garden. There they got out, and there for six weeks they led a life the cost of which it did not need all their money to meet.
They were lucky; the weather was fine, it was a blue autumn, a long succession of sunny days from October into November, and Miss Spoelmann rode daily—that was her only luxury—with her companion, on horses which she hired by the week from the livery stables. Mr. Spoelmann did not ride, although the Courier, with obvious reference to him, published a note by its medical colleague according to which riding had a soothing effect in cases of stone, owing to its jolting, and helped to disperse the stone. But the hotel staff knew that the famous man practised artificial riding within the four walls of his room, with the help of a machine, a stationary velocipede to whose saddle a jolting motion was imparted by the working of the pedals.
He was a zealous drinker of the healing waters, the Ditlinde Spring, by which he seemed to set great store. He appeared first thing every morning in the Fiillhaus, accompanied by his daughter, who for her part was quite healthy, and only drank" with him for company's sake, and then, in his faded coat and with his hat pulled over his eyes, took his exercise in the Spa Garden and Wandel-halle, drinking the water the while through a glass tube out of a blue tumbler—watched at a distance by the two American newspaper correspondents, whose duty it was to telegraph to their papers a thousand words daily about Spoelmann's holiday resort, and who were therefore bound to try to get something to telegraph about.
Otherwise he was rarely visible. His illness—kidney ​colic, so people said, extremely painful attacks—seemed to confine him often to his room, if not to his bed, and while Miss Spoelmann with Countess Löwenjoul appeared two or three times at the Court Theatre (when, in a black velvet dress with an Indian silk scarf of a wonderful gold-yellow colour round her fresh young shoulders, she looked quite bewitching with her pearl-white complexion and great black pleading eyes), her father was never seen in the box with her. He took, it is true, in her company one or two drives through the capital, to do some shopping, get some idea of the town, and see a few select sights; he went for a walk with her too, through the park and twice inspected there the Schloss Delphinenort—the second time alone, when he was so much interested as to take measurements of the walls with an ordinary yellow rule, which he took out of his faded coat.… But he was never seen in the dining-room of the "Spa Court," for whether because he was on an almost meatless diet, or for some other reason, he took his meals exclusively with his own party in his own rooms, and the curiosity of the public had on the whole remarkably little to feed on.
The result was that Spoelmann's arrival at the Spa at first did not prove so beneficial as Fräulein von Isenschnibbe and many others beside her had expected. The export of bottles increased, that was certain; it quickly rose to half as many again as its previous figure, and remained at that. But the influx of foreigners did not increase noticeably; the guests who came to feast their eyes on so abnormal an existence soon went away again, satisfied or disappointed, besides it was for the most part not the most desirable elements of society that were attracted by the millionaire's presence. Strange creatures appeared in the streets, unkempt and wild-eyed creatures—inventors, projectors, would-be benefactors of mankind, who hoped to enlist Spoelmann's sympathies for their hobbies. But ​the millionaire made himself absolutely inaccessible to these people; indeed, purple with rage, he howled at one of them who made advances towards him in the park, in such a way that the busybody quickly skedaddled, and it was often said that the torrent of begging letters which daily flowed in to him—letters which often bore stamps which the officials of the Grand Ducal post-office had never seen before—was at once discharged into a paper-basket of quite unusual capacity.
Spoelmann seemed to have forbidden all business letters to be sent him, seemed determined to enjoy his holiday to the utmost, and during his travels in Europe to live exclusively for his health—or ill-health. The Courier, whose reporter had lost no time in making friends with his American colleagues, was in a position to announce that a reliable man, a so-called chief manager, was Mr. Spoelmann's representative in America. He went on to say that his yacht, a gorgeously decorated vessel, was awaiting the great man at Venice, and that as soon as he had finished his cure he intended to travel south with his party.
It told also, in answer to importunate requests from its readers—of the romantic origin of the Spoelmann millions, from their beginning in Victoria, whither his father had drifted from some German office stool or other, young, poor, and armed only with a pick, a shovel, and a tin plate. There he had begun by working as help to a gold digger, as a day labourer, in the sweat of his brow. And then luck had come to him. A man, a claim-owner on a small scale, had fared so badly that he could no longer buy himself his tomatoes and dry bread for dinner, and in his extremity had been obliged to dispose of his claim. Spoelmann senior had bought it, had staked his all on one card, and, with his whole savings, amounting to £5 sterling, had bought this piece of alluvial land called "Paradise ​Field," not more than forty feet square. And the next day he had turned up, a foot under the surface, a nugget of pure gold, the tenth biggest nugget in the world, the "Paradise nugget," weighing 980 ounces and worth £5,000.
That, related the Courier, had been the beginning. Spoelmann's father had emigrated to South America with the proceeds of his find, to Bolivia, and as gold-washer, amalgam-millowner, and mine-owner had continued to extract the yellow metal direct from the rivers and the womb of the mountains. Then and there Spoelmann senior had married—and the Courier went so far as to hint in this connexion that he had done so defiantly and without regard to the prejudices generally felt in those parts. However, he had doubled his capital and succeeded in investing his money most profitably.
He had moved on northwards to Philadelphia, Pa. That was in the fifties, the time of a great boom in railway construction, and Spoelmann had begun with one investment in the Baltimore and Ohio Railway. He had also leased a coal-mine in the west of the State, the profits from which had been enormous. Finally he had joined that group of fortunate young men which bought the famous Blockhead Farm for a few thousand pounds—the property which, with its petroleum wells, in a short time increased in value to a hundred times its purchase price.… This enterprise had made a rich man of Spoelmann senior, but he had by no means rested on his oars, but unceasingly practised the art of making money into more money, and finally into superabundant money.
He had started steel works, had floated companies for the turning of iron into steel on a large scale, and for building railway bridges. He had bought up the major part of the shares of four or five big railway companies, and had been elected in the later years of his life president, ​vice-president, manager, or director of the companies. When the Steel Trust was formed, so the Courier said, he had joined it, with a holding of shares which guaranteed him an income of $12,000,000. But at the same time he had been chief shareholder and expert adviser of the Petroleum Combine, and in virtue of his holding had dominated three or four of the other Trust Companies. And at his death his fortune, reckoned in German currency, had amounted to a round thousand million marks.
Samuel, his only son, the offspring of that early marriage, contracted in defiance of public opinion, had been his sole heir—and the Courier, with its usual delicacy, interpolated a remark to the effect that there was something almost sad in the idea of any one, without himself contributing, and through no fault of his own, being born to such a situation. Samuel had inherited the palace on Fifth Avenue at New York, the country mansions, and all the shares, Trust bonds, and profits of his father; he inherited also the strange position to which his father had risen, his world-fame and the hatred directed by his out-distanced competitors against the power of his gold—all the hatred to allay which he yearly distributed his huge donations to colleges, conservatoires, libraries, benevolent institutions, and that University which his father had founded and which bore his name.
Samuel Spoelmann did not deserve the hatred of the out-distanced competitors; that the Courier was sure of. He had gone early into the business, and had controlled the bewildering possessions of his house all by himself during his father's last years. But everybody knew that his heart had never been really in the business. His real inclinations had been, strange to say, all along much more towards music and especially organ music—and the truth of this information on the part of the Courier was certain, for Mr. Spoelmann actually kept a small organ in the ​"Spa Court," whose bellows he got a hotel servant to blow, and he could be heard from the Spa Garden playing it for an hour every day.
He had married for love and not at all from social considerations, according to the Courier—a poor and pretty girl, half German, half Anglo-Saxon by descent. She had died, but she had left him a daughter, that wonderful blood-mixture of a girl, whom we now had as guest within our walls and who was at the time nineteen years old. Her name was Imma—a real German name, as the Courier added, nothing more than an old form of "Emma," and it might be remarked that the daily conversation in the Spoelmann household, though interlarded with scraps of English, had remained German. And how devoted father and daughter seemed to be to each other! Every morning, by going to the Spa Garden at the right time, one could watch Fraulein Spoelmann, who usually entered the Fiillhause a little later than her father, take his head between her hands and give him his morning kiss on mouth and cheeks, while he patted her tenderly on the back. Then they went arm-in-arm through the Wandelhalle and sucked their glass tubes as they went.…
That is how the well-informed journal gossiped and fed the public curiosity. It also reported carefully the visits which Miss Imma kindly paid with her companion to several of the charitable institutions of the town. Yesterday she had made a detailed inspection of the public kitchens. To-day she had made a prolonged tour of the Trinity Almshouses for old women, and she had recently twice attended Privy Councillor Klinghammer's lectures on the theory of numbers at the university—had sat on the bench, a student among students, and scribbled away with her fountain-pen, for everybody knew that she was a learned girl and devoted to the study of algebra. Yes, all that was absorbing reading, and furnished ample food for ​conversation. But the topics which made themselves talked about without any help from the Courier were, firstly, the dog, that noble black-and-white collie which the Spoelmanns had brought with them, and secondly, in a different way, the companion, Countess Löwenjoul.
As for the dog, whose name was Percival, generally shortened to Percy, he was an animal of so excitable and emotional a disposition as beggared description. Inside the hotel he afforded no grounds for complaint, but lay in a dignified attitude on a small carpet outside the Spoelmanns' suite. But every time he went out he had an attack of light-headedness, which caused general interest and surprise, indeed more than once actual obstruction of traffic.
Followed at a distance by a swarm of native dogs, common curs which, incited by his demeanour, assailed him with censorious yaps, and which caused him no concern whatever, he flew through the streets, his nose spattered with foam and barking wildly, pirouetted madly in front of the tramcars, made the cab-horses stumble, and twice knocked Widow Klaaszen's cake stall at the Town Hall down so violently that the sugar cakes rolled half over the Market-place. But as Mr. Spoelmann or his daughter at once met such catastrophes with more than adequate compensation, as too it was discovered that Percival's attacks were really quite free from danger, that he was anything but inclined to bite and steal, but on the contrary kept to himself and would let nobody come near him, public opinion quickly turned in his favour, and to the children in particular his excursions were a constant source of pleasure.
Countess Löwenjoul on her side supplied food for con versation in a quieter but no less strange way. At first, when her personality and position were not yet known in the city, she had attracted the gibes of the street urchins, ​because, while out walking alone, she talked to herself softly and deliberately, and accompanied her words with lively and at the same time graceful and elegant gestures. But she had shown such mildness and goodness to the children who shouted after her and tugged at her dress, she had spoken to them with such affection and dignity, that her persecutors had slunk away abashed and confused, and later, when she became known, respect for her relations with the famous guests secured her from molestation. However, some unintelligible anecdotes were secretly circulated about her. One man told how the Countess had given him a gold piece with instructions that he should box the ears of a certain old woman who was understood to have made some unseemly proposal or other to her. The man had pocketed the gold piece, without, however, discharging his commission.
Further, it was declared as a. fact that the Countess had accosted the sentry in front of the Fusiliers' Barracks and had told him at once to arrest the wife of the sergeant of one of the companies because of her moral shortcomings. She had written too a letter to the Colonel of the regiment to the effect that all sorts of secret and unspeakable abominations went on inside the barracks. Whether she was right in her facts, heaven only knew. But many people at once concluded that she was wrong in her head. At any rate, there was no time to investigate the matter, for six weeks were soon past, and Samuel N. Spoelmann, the millionaire, went away.
He went away after having had his portrait painted by Professor von Lindemann—an expensive portrait too, which he gave to the proprietor of the "Spa Court" as a memento; he went away with his daughter, the Countess, and Doctor Watercloose, with Percival, the chamber-velocipede, and his servants; went by special train to the South, with the view of spending the winter on the Riviera, ​whither the two New York journalists had hastened ahead of him, and of then crossing back home again. It was all over. The Courier wished Mr. Spoelmann a hearty farewell and expressed the hope that the cure would be found to have done him good.
And with that the notable interlude seemed to be closed and done with. Everyday life claimed its due, and Mr. Spoelmann began to fade into oblivion. The winter passed. It was the winter in which her Grand Ducal Highness the Princess zu Ried-Hohenried was confined of a daughter. Spring came, and his Royal Highness Grand Duke Albrecht repaired as usual to Hollerbrunn. But then a rumour cropped up amongst the people and in the press, which was received at first with a shrug by the sober-minded, but became more concrete, crystallized, took to itself quite precise details, and finally won itself a dominant place in the solid and pithy news of the day.
What was toward? A Grand Ducal Schloss was about to be sold? Nonsense! Which Schloss?—Delphinenort. Schloss Delphinenort in the North Park? Twaddle! Sold? To whom?—To Spoelmann. Ridiculous! What could he do with it?—Restore it, and live in it. That's all very well. But perhaps our Parliament might have something to say to that.—They don't care twopence. Had the State any responsibility for keeping up Schloss Delphinenort?—If they had, it's a pity they hadn't recognized it, dear old place. No, Parliament had no say in the matter. Have the negotiations advanced at all far?—Rather, they're completed. Goodness gracious, then of course the exact price is known?—Naturally. Sold for two millions, not a farthing less. Impossible! A Royal Palace! Royal palace be blowed! We're not talking of the Grimmburg or of the Old Schloss. We're talking of a country house, an unused country house which is falling in pieces for lack of funds to keep it up.
​So Spoelmann intended to come back every year and spend several weeks in Delphinenort?—No. For he intended rather to come and settle among us altogether. He was sick of America, wanted to turn his back on it, and his first stay amongst us was merely to spy out the land. He was ill, he wanted to retire from business. He had always remained a German at heart. The father had emigrated, and the son wanted to come back home. He wished to take his part in the modest life and intellectual resources of our country, and to spend the rest of his days in the immediate neighbourhood of the Ditlinde Spa.
All was confusion and bustle, and discussions without end. But public opinion, with the exception of the voices of a few grumblers, trended after a short hesitation in favour of the idea of sale; indeed without this general approval the matter could never have gone very far. It was House Minister von Knobelsdorff who first ventured on a cautious announcement of Spoelmann's offer in the daily press. He had waited and allowed the popular feeling to come to a decision. And after the first confusion, solid reasons in favour of the project had made themselves felt.
The business world was enchanted at the idea of having so doughty a consumer at their doors. The aesthetes showed themselves delighted at the prospect of seeing Schloss Delphinenort restored and kept up—at seeing the noble old building restored to honour and youth in so unforeseen, indeed so romantic a way. But the economically-minded brought forward figures which were calculated to cause grave misgivings as to the financial position of the country. If Samuel N. Spoelmann settled among us, he would become a tax-payer—he would have to pay us his income-tax.
Perhaps it was worth while showing what that meant. Mr. Spoelmann would be left to declare his own income, but, from what one knew—and knew fairly accurately—his ​residence would mean a yearly revenue of two and a half millions, in taxes alone, not to mention what he paid in rates. Worth thinking about, wasn't it? The question was put straight to the Finance Minister, Dr. Krippenreuther. He would be wanting in his duty if he did not do all he could to recommend the sale in the highest quarters. For patriotism demanded that Spoelmann's offer should be accepted, and patriotism was paramount above all other considerations.
So Excellency von Knobelsdorff had had an interview with the Grand Duke. He had informed his master of the public opinion, had added that the price offered, two millions, considerably exceeded the real value of the Schloss in its present condition, had remarked that such a sum meant a real windfall for the Treasury, and had ended by slipping in a hint about the central heating of the Old Schloss, which, if the sale was carried through, would no longer be an impossibility. In short, the single-minded old gentleman had brought his whole influence to bear in favour of the sale, and had recommended the Grand Duke to bring the matter before a family moot. Albrecht had sucked his lower lip softly against the upper, and summoned the family moot. It had met in the Hall of the Knights over tea and biscuits. Only two feminine members, the Princess Catherine and Ditlinde, had opposed the sale, on the ground of loss of dignity.
"You will be misunderstood, Albrecht!" said Ditlinde. "They will charge you with want of respect to your high station, and that is not right, for you have on the contrary too much; you are so proud, Albrecht, that everything is all the same to you. But I say No. I do not wish to see a Crœsus living in one of your Schlosses, it is not right, and it was bad enough that he should have a family physician and take the Prince's suite in the Spa Court. The Courier harps on the fact that he is a tax-paying subject, but in my ​eyes he is simply a subject and nothing else. What do you think, Klaus Heinrich?"
But Klaus Heinrich voted for the sale. In the first place, Albrecht got his central heating; secondly, Spoelmann was not one of the common herd, he was not soap-boiler Unschlitt—he was an exception, and there was no disgrace in letting him have Delphinenort. Finally Albrecht had, with downcast eyes, pronounced the whole family moot to be a farce. The people had long ago made up their minds, his Ministers urged the sale, and there was nothing left for him to do but to "wave to the engine-driver and start the train."
The family moot had taken place in spring. From that time onwards the negotiations for sale, which were carried on between Spoelmann on the one hand and the Lord Marshal von Bühl zu Bühl on the other, had proceeded apace, and the summer was not far advanced before Schloss Delphinenort with its park and out-buildings had become the lawful property of Mr. Spoelmann.
Then began a scene of bustle and confusion round and in the Schloss, which daily attracted crowds to the northern side of the park. Delphinenort was improved and partly reconstructed inside by a swarm of workmen. For quick, quick, was the order of the day, that was Spoelmann's wish, and he had only allowed five months' respite for everything to be ready for him to enter into possession. So a wooden scaffold with ladders and platforms shot up at lightning speed round the dilapidated old building, foreign workmen swarmed all over it, and an architect came with carte blanche over the, seas to superintend the work. But the greater part of the work fell to our native manual workers to perform, and the stonemasons and tilers, the joiners, gilders, upholsterers, glaziers, and parquet-layers of the city, the landscape gardeners and heating and lighting experts, had plenty of remunerative work all through the summer and autumn.
​When his Royal Highness Klaus Heinrich left his window in the "Hermitage" open, the noise of the work at Delphinenort penetrated right through to the Empire room, and he often drove past the Schloss amid the respectful greetings of the public, in order to satisfy himself of the progress of the restoration. The gardener's cottage was painted up, the sheds and stables, which were destined to accommodate Spoelmann's fleet of motors and carriages, were enlarged; and by October, furniture and carpets, chests and cases full of stuffs and household utensils had been delivered at Schloss Delphinenort, while it was whispered among the bystanders that inside the walls skilled hands were at work fitting Spoelmann's costly organ, which had been sent from over the sea, with electric action.
There was much excitement to know whether the park belonging to the Schloss, which had been so splendidly cleaned up and trimmed, was to be fenced off from the public by a wall or hedge. But nothing of the sort was done. It was Spoelmann's wish that the property should continue to be accessible, that no restraint should be placed on the citizens' enjoyment of the park. The Sunday promenaders should have access right up to the Schloss, up to the clipped hedge which surrounded the big square pond—and this did not fail to make an excellent impression on the population; indeed, the Courier published a special article on the subject, in which it praised Mr. Spoelmann for his philanthropy.
And behold! when the leaves again began to fall, exactly one year after his first appearance, Samuel Spoelmann landed a second time at our railway station. This time the general interest in the event was much greater than in the preceding year, and it is on record that, when Mr. Spoelmann, in his well-known faded coat and with his hat over his eyes, left his saloon, loud cheers were raised by the crowd of spectators—an expression of feelings ​which Mr. Spoelmann seemed rather inclined to resent, and which not he but Doctor Watercloose acknowledged with blinking eyes and a broad smile. When Miss Spoelmann too alighted, a cheer was raised, and one or two urchins even shouted when Percy, the collie, appeared springing, leaping, and altogether beside himself, on the platform. In addition to the doctor and Countess Löwenjoul there were two unknown persons in attendance, two clean-shaven and decided-looking men in strangely roomy coats. They were Mr. Spoelmann's secretaries, Messrs. Phlebs and Slippers, as the Courier announced in its report
At that time Delphinenort was far from ready, and the Spoelmanns at once took possession of the first floor of the chief hotel, where a big, haughty, paunch-bellied man in black, the steward or butler of the Spoelmann establishment, who had preceded them, had made preparations for them, and put the chamber-velocipede together with his own hands. Every day, while Miss Imma with her Countess and Percy went for a ride or a visit to some charitable institution, Mr. Spoelmann hung about his house, super-intending the work and giving orders, and when the end of the year approached, just after the first snow had fallen, prospect became fact, and the Spoelmanns took up their abode in Schloss Delphinenort. Two motor cars (their arrival had been watched with interest—splendid cars they were) bore the six members of the party—Messrs. Phlebs and Slippers sat in the hinder one—driven by the leather-clad chauffeurs, with servants in snow-white fur coats and crossed arms beside them, in a few minutes from the hotel through the City Gardens; and as the cars dashed along the noble chestnut avenue which led to the drive, the urchins climbed up the high lamp-posts which stood at all four corners of the big spa-basin, and waved their caps and cheered.…
So Spoelmann and his belongings settled down among ​us, and we basked in the light of his presence. His white-and-gold livery was seen and known in the city, just as the brown-and-gold Grand Ducal livery was seen and known; the negro in scarlet plush who was doorkeeper at Delphinenort soon became a popular figure, and when passers-by heard the subdued rumble of Mr. Spoelmann's organ from the interior of the Schloss they lifted a finger and said: "Hark, he's playing. That means that he's not got colic for the moment."
Miss Imma was to be seen daily by the side of Countess Löwenjoul, followed by a groom and with Percy capering round, riding, or driving a smart four-in-hand through the City Gardens—while the servant who sat on the back seat stood up from time to time, drew a long silver horn from a leather sheath and wound a shrill warning of their approach; and by getting up early one could see father and daughter every morning go in a dark-red brougham, or, in fine weather, on foot through the park of Schloss "Hermitage" to the Spa-Garden, in order to drink the waters. Imma for her part, as already mentioned, again began a course of visits to the benevolent institutions of the city, though she appeared not to give up her studies for all that; for from the beginning of the half-term she regularly attended the lectures of Councillor Klinghammer at the University—sat daily in a black dress with white collar and cuffs among the young students in the lecture-theatre, and drove her fountain-pen—with her forefinger raised in the air, a trick of hers when writing—over the pages of her notebook.
The Spoelmanns lived in retirement, they did not mix in the life of the town, as was natural in view both of Mr. Spoelmann's ill-health and of his social loneliness. What social group could he have attached himself to? Nobody even suggested to him that he should consort with soap-boiler Unschlitt or bank-director Wolfsmilch on ​confidential terms. Yet he was soon approached with appeals to his generosity, and the appeals were not in vain. For Mr. Spoelmann, who, it was well known, before his departure from America had given a large sum in dollars to the Board of Education in the United States, and had also stated in so many words that he had no intention of withdrawing his yearly contributions to the Spoelmann University and his other educational foundations—he, shortly after his arrival at "Delphinenort," put his name down for a subscription of ten thousand marks to the Dorothea Children's Hospital, for which a collection was just being made; an action the nobleness of which was immediately recognized in fitting terms by the Courier and the rest of the press.
In fact, although the Spoelmanns lived in seclusion in a social sense, a certain amount of publicity attached to their life among us from the earliest moments, and in the local section of the daily newspapers at least their movements were followed with as much particularity as those of the members of the Grand Ducal House. The public were informed when Miss Imma had played a game of lawn tennis with the Countess and Messrs. Phlebs and Slippers in the "Delphinenort" park; it was noted when she had been at the Court Theatre, and whether her father had gone with her for an act or two of the Opera; and if Mr. Spoelmann shrank from curiosity, never leaving his box during the intervals and scarcely ever showing himself on foot in the streets, yet he was obviously not insensible to the duties of a spectacular kind which were inherent in an extraordinary existence like his own, and he gave the love of gazing its due.
It has been said that the "Delphinenort" park was not divided from the Town Gardens. No walls separated the Schloss from the outer world. From the back one could walk over the turf right up to the foot of the broad covered ​terrace which had been built on that side, and, if bold enough, look through the big glass door straight into the high white-and-gold garden-room in which Mr. Spoelmann and his family had five-o'clock tea. Indeed, when summer came, tea was laid on the terrace outside, and Mr. and Miss Spoelmann, the Countess and Doctor Watercloose sat in basket chairs of a new-fangled shape, and took their tea as if on a public platform.
Klaus Heinrich saw Imma Spoelmann for the first time on a bright winter's day at noon. That does not mean that he had not already caught sight of her often at the theatre, in the street, and in the town park. But that's quite a different thing. He saw her for the first time at this midday hour and in exciting circumstances.
He had been giving "free audiences" in the Old Schloss till half-past eleven, and after they were finished had not returned at once to Schloss "Hermitage," but had ordered his coachman to keep the carriage waiting in one of the courts, as he wished to smoke a cigarette with the Guards officers on duty. As he wore the uniform of that regiment, to which his personal aide-de-camp also belonged, he made ​an effort to maintain the semblance of some sort of camaraderie with the officers; he dined from time to time in their mess and occasionally gave them half an hour of his company on guard, although he had a dim suspicion that he was rather a nuisance as he kept them from their cards and smoking-room stories.
So there he stood, the convex silver star of the Noble Order of the Grimmburg Griffin on his breast, his left hand planted well back on his hip, with Herr von Braunbart-Schellendorf, who had given due notice of the visit in the officers' mess, which was situated on the ground floor of the Schloss near the Albrechts Gate—engaged in a trivial conversation with two or three officers in the middle of the room, while a further group of officers chatted at the deep-set window. Owing to the warmth of sun outside the window stood open, and from the barracks along the Albrechtstrasse came the strains of the drum and fife band of the approaching relief guard.
Twelve o'clock struck from the Court Chapel tower. The loud "Fall in!" of the non-commissioned officer was heard outside, and the rattle of grenadiers standing to arms. The public collected on the square. The lieutenant on duty hastily buckled on his sword belt, clapped his heels together in a salute to Klaus Heinrich and went out. Then suddenly Lieutenant von Sturmhahn, who had been looking out of the window, cried with that rather poor imitation of familiarity which was proper to the relations between Klaus Heinrich and the officers: "Great heavens, here's something for you to look at, Royal Highness! There goes Miss Spoelmann, with her algebra under her arm.…"
Klaus Heinrich walked to the window. Miss Imma was walking by herself along the pavement. With both hands thrust into her big flat muff, which was trimmed with pendent tails, she carried her notebook pressed to her side ​with her elbow. She was wearing a long coat of shiny black fox, and a toque of the same fur on her dark foreign-looking hair. She was obviously coming from "Delphine-nort" and hurrying towards the University. She reached the main guard-house at the moment at which the relief guard marched up the gutter, over against the guard on duty, which standing at attention in two ranks occupied the pavement. She was absolutely compelled to go round, outside the band and the crowd of spectators—indeed, if she wished to avoid the open square with its tram-lines, to make a fairly wide detour on the footpath running round it—or to wait for the end of the military ceremony.
She showed no intention of doing either. She made as if to walk along the pavement in front of the Schloss right down between the two ranks of soldiers. The sergeant with the harsh voice stepped forward quickly. "Not this way!" he cried and held the butt of his rifle in front of her. "Not this way! Right about! Wait!"
But Miss Spoelmann fired up. "What d'you mean?" she cried. "I'm in a hurry!"
But her words were not so impressive as the expression of honest, passionate, irresistible anger with which they were uttered. How slight and lonely she was! The fair-haired soldiers round her towered head and shoulders above her. Her face was as pale as wax at this moment, her black eyebrows were knitted in a hard and expressive wrinkle, her nostrils distended, and her eyes, black with excitement and wide-opened, spoke so expressive and bewitching a language that no protest seemed possible.
"What d'you mean?" she cried. "I'm in a hurry!" And as she said it she pushed the rifle-butt, and the stupefied sergeant with it, aside, and walked down between the lines, went straight on her way, turned to the left into Universitätsstrasse and vanished.
​"I'm damned!" cried Lieutenant von Sturmhahn. "That's one for us!" The officers at the window laughed. The spectators outside, too, were much amused, and not unsympathetic. Klaus Heinrich joined in the general hilarity. The changing of the guard proceeded with loud words of command and snatches of march tunes. Klaus Heinrich returned to the "Hermitage."
He lunched all alone, went for a ride in the afternoon on his brown horse Florian, and spent the evening at a big party at Dr. Krippenreuther, the Finance Minister's house. He related to several people with great animation the episode of the guard, although the story had already gone the round and become common property. Next day he had to go away, for he had been told by his brother to represent him at the inauguration of the new Town Hall in a neighbouring town. For some reason or other, he went reluctantly, he disliked leaving the capital. He had a feeling that he was missing an important, pleasant, though rather disquieting opportunity, which imperatively demanded his presence. And yet his exalted calling must be more important. But while he sat serene and gorgeously dressed on his seat of honour in the Town Hall, and read his speech to the Mayor, Klaus Heinrich's thoughts were not concentrated on the figure he presented to the eyes of the crowd, but rather were busied with this new and important topic. He also gave a passing thought to a person whose casual acquaintance he had made long years before, to Fräulein Unschlitt, the soap-boiler's daughter—a memory which had a certain connexion with the importunate topic.…
Imma Spoelmann pushed the harsh-voiced sergeant aside in her anger—walked all alone, her algebra under her arm, down the ranks of the. big fair-haired Grenadiers. How pearly white her face was against her black hair under her fur toque, and how her eyes spoke! There was ​nobody like her. Her father was rich, surfeited with riches, and had bought one of the Grand Ducal Schlosses. What was it that the Courier had said about his undeserved reputation and the "romantic isolation of his life"? He was the object of the hatred of aggrieved rivals—that was the effect of the article. And her nostrils had distended with anger. There was nobody like her, nobody near or far. She was an exception. And suppose she had been at the Citizens' Ball on that occasion? He would then have had a companion, would not have made a fool of himself, and would not have ended the evening in despair. "Down, down, down with him!" Phew! Just think of how she looked as she walked, dark and pale and wonderful, down the ranks of fair-haired soldiers.
These were the thoughts which occupied Klaus Heinrich during the next few days—just these three or four mental pictures. And the strange thing is that they were amply sufficient for him, and that he did not want any more. But all things considered, it seemed to him more than desirable that he should get another glimpse of the pearly-white face soon, to-day if possible.
In the evening he went to the Court Theatre, where The Magic Flute was being played. And when from his box he descried Miss Spoelmann next to Countess Löwenjoul in the front of the circle, a tremor went right through him. During the opera he could watch her out of the darkness through his opera-glasses, for the light from the stage fell on her. She laid her head on her small, ringless hand, while she rested her bare arm on the velvet braid, and she did not look angry now. She wore a dress of glistening sea-green silk with a fight scarf on which bright flowers were embroidered, and round her neck a long chain of sparkling diamonds. She really was not so small as she looked, Klaus Heinrich decided, when she stood up at the end of the act. No, the childish shape of her head and the ​narrowness of her shoulders accounted for her looking such a little thing. Her arms were well developed, and one could see that she played games and rode. But at the wrist her arm looked like a child's.
When the passage came: "He is a prince. He is more than that," Klaus Heinrich conceived the wish to have a talk with Doctor Ueberbein. Doctor Ueberbein called by chance next day at the "Hermitage" in a black frock-coat and white tie, as usual when he paid Klaus Heinrich a visit. Klaus Heinrich asked him whether he had already heard the story of the changing of the guard. Yes, answered Doctor Ueberbein, several times. But would Klaus Heinrich like to relate it to him again? … "No, not if you know it," said Klaus Heinrich, disappointed. Then Doctor Ueberbein jumped to quite another topic. He began to talk about opera-glasses, and remarked that opera-glasses were a wonderful invention. They brought close what was unfortunately a long way off, did they not? They formed a bridge to a longed-for goal. What did Klaus Heinrich think? Klaus Heinrich was inclined to agree to a certain extent. And it seemed that yesterday evening, so people said, he had made free use of this grand invention, said the doctor. Klaus Heinrich could not see the point of this remark.
Then Doctor Ueberbein said: "No, look here, Klaus Heinrich, that won't do. You are stared at, and little Imma is stared at, and that's enough. If you add to it by staring at little Imma, that's too much. You must see that, surely?"
"Oh dear, Doctor Ueberbein, I never thought of that."
"But in other cases you generally do think of that sort of thing."
"I've felt so funny for the last few days," said Klaus Heinrich.
Doctor Ueberbein leaned back, pulled at his red beard ​near his throat, and nodded slowly with his head and neck.
"Really? Have you?" he asked. And then went on nodding.
Klaus Heinrich said: "You can't think how reluctant I was to go the other day to the inauguration of the Town Hall. And to-morrow I have to superintend the swearing-in of the Grenadier recruits. And then comes the Chapter of the Family Order. I don't feel a bit in the mood for that. I find no pleasure in doing my duty as the representative of my people. I've no inclination for my so-called lofty calling."
"I'm sorry to hear it!" said Doctor Ueberbein sharply.
"Yes, I might have known that you would be angry, Doctor Ueberbein. Of course you'll call it sloppiness, and will read me a sermon about 'destiny and discipline,' if I know you. But at the opera yesterday I thought of you at one point, and asked myself whether you really were so right in several particulars.…"
"Look here, Klaus Heinrich, once already, if I'm not mistaken, I've dragged your Royal Highness out of the mud, so to speak.…"
"That was quite different, Doctor Ueberbein! How I wish you could see that that was absolutely different! That was at the Citizens' Ball, but it was years ago, and I don't feel a twinge in that direction. For she is … Look you, you have often explained to me what you understand by 'Highness,' and that it is something affecting, and something to be approached with tender sympathy. Don't you think that she of whom we are speaking, that she is affecting and that one must feel sympathy with her?"
"Perhaps," said Doctor Ueberbein. "Perhaps."
"You often said that one must not disavow exceptions, that to do so was sloppiness and slovenly good-nature. Don't you think that she too of whom we are speaking is an exception?"
​Doctor Ueberbein was silent. Then he said suddenly and decidedly, "And now I, if possible, am to help to make two exceptions into a rule?"
Thereupon he went out. He said that he must get back to his work, emphasizing the word "work," and begged leave to withdraw. He took his departure in a strangely ceremonious and unfatherly way.
Klaus Heinrich did not see him for ten or twelve days. He asked him to lunch once, but Doctor Ueberbein begged to be excused, his work at the moment was too pressing. At last he came spontaneously. He was in high spirits and looked greener than ever. He blustered about this and that, and at last came to the subject of the Spoelmanns, looking at the ceiling and pulling at his throat when he did so. To be quite fair, he said, there was a striking amount of sympathy felt with Samuel Spoelmann, one could see all over the town how much beloved he was. Chiefly of course as an object of taxation, but in other respects too. There was simply a penchant for him, in every class, for his organ-playing and his faded coat and his kidney-colic. Every errand boy was proud of him, and if he were not so unapproachable and morose he would already have been made to teel it.
The ten-thousand marks donation for the Dorothea Hospital had naturally made an excellent impression. His friend Sammet had told him (Ueberbein) that with the help of this donation far-reaching improvements had been undertaken in the Hospital. And for the rest, it had just occurred to him! Little Imma was going to inspect the improvements to-morrow morning, Sammet had told him. She had sent one of her swansdown flunkeys and asked whether she would be welcome to-morrow. She and sick children were a devilish funny mixture, opined Ueberbein, but perhaps she might learn something. To-morrow morning at eleven, if his memory did not mislead him.
​Then he talked about other things. On leaving he added: "The Grand Duke ought to take some interest in the Dorothea Hospital, Klaus Heinrich, it's expected of him. It's a blessed institution. In short, somebody ought to show the way, give signs of an interest in high quarters. No wish to intrude.… And so good-bye."
But he came back once more, and in his green face a flush had appeared under the eyes which looked entirely out of place there. "If," he said deliberately, "I ever caught you again with a soup tureen on your head, Klaus Heinrich, I should leave it there." Then he pressed his lips together and went out.
Next morning shortly before eleven Klaus Heinrich walked with Herr von Braunbart-Schellendorf, his aide-de-camp, from Schloss "Hermitage" through the snow-covered birch avenue over rough suburban streets between humble cottages, and stopped before the neat white house over whose entrance "Dorothea Children's Hospital" was painted in broad black letters. His visit had been announced. The senior surgeon of the institution, in a frock-coat with the Albrechts Cross of the Third Class, was awaiting him with two younger surgeons and the nursing staff in the hall. The Prince and his companion were wearing helmets and fur coats. Klaus Heinrich said: "This is the renewal of an old acquaintance, my dear doctor. You were present when I came into the world. You are also a friend of my tutor Ueberbein's. I am delighted to meet you."
Doctor Sammet, who had grown grey in his life of active philanthropy, bowed to one side, with one hand on his watch-chain and his elbows close to his ribs. He presented the two junior surgeons and the sister to the Prince, and then said: "I must explain to your Royal Highness that your Royal Highness's gracious visit coincides with another visit. Yes. We are expecting Miss Spoelmann. Her ​father has done such a lot for our institution.… We could not very well upset the arrangements. The sister will take Miss Spoelmann round."
Klaus Heinrich received the news of this rencontre without displeasure. He first expressed his opinion of the nurses' uniform, which he called becoming, and then his curiosity to inspect the philanthropic institution. The tour began. The sister with three nurses waited behind in the hall.
All the walls in the building were whitewashed and washable. Yes. The water taps were huge, they were meant to be worked with the elbows for reasons of cleanliness. And rinsing apparatus had been installed for washing the milk-bottles. One passed first through the reception room, which was empty save for a couple of disused beds and the surgeons' bicycles. In the adjoining preparation room there were, besides the writing-table and the stand with the students' white coats, a kind of folding table with oil-cloth cushions, an operating-table, a cupboard of provisions, and a trough-shaped perambulator. Klaus Heinrich paused at the provisions and asked for the recipes for the preparations to be explained to him. Doctor Sammet thought to himself that if the whole tour was going to be made with such attention to details, a terrible lot of time would be wasted.
Suddenly a noise was heard in the street. An automobile drove up tooting and stopped in front of the building. Cheers were heard distinctly in the preparation room, for all that it was only children that were shouting. Klaus Heinrich did not pay any particular attention to the incident. He was looking at a box of sugar of milk, which, by the way, had nothing striking about it. "A visitor apparently," he said. "Oh, of course, you said somebody was coming. Let's go on."
The party proceeded to the kitchen, the milk-kitchen, ​the big boiler-fitted room for the preparing of milk, the place where full milk, boiled milk, and buttermilk were kept. The daily rations were set on clean white tables in little bottles side by side. The place smelt sourish and sickly.
Klaus Heinrich gave his undivided attention to this room also. He went so far as to taste the buttermilk, and pronounced it excellent. How the children must thrive, he considered, on buttermilk like that. During this in spection the door opened and Miss Spoelmann entered between the sister and Countess Löwenjoul, followed by the three nurses.
The coat, toque, and muff which she was wearing to-day were made of the costliest sable, and her muff was suspended on a golden chain set with coloured stones. Her black hair showed a tendency to fall in smooth locks over her forehead. She took in the room at a glance; her eyes were really almost unbecomingly big for her little face, they dominated it like a cat's, save that they were black as anthracite and spoke a pleading language of their own.… Countess Löwenjoul, with a feather hat and dressed neatly and not without distinction, as usual, smiled in a detached sort of way.
"The milk-kitchen," said the sister; "this is where the milk is cooked for the children."
"So one would have supposed," answered Miss Spoelmann. She said it quickly and lightly, with a pout of her lips and a little haughty wag of her head. Her voice was a double one; it consisted of a lower and a higher register, with a break in the middle.
The sister was quite disconcerted. "Yes," she said, "it's obvious." And a little pained look of bewilderment was visible in her face.
The position was a complicated one. Doctor Sammet looked in Klaus Heinrich's face for orders, but as Klaus Heinrich was accustomed to do what was put before him ​according to prescribed forms, but not to grapple with novel and complex situations, no solution of the difficulty was forthcoming. Herr von Braunbart was on the point of intervening, and Miss Spoelmann on the other side was making ready to leave the milk-kitchen, when the Prince made a gesture with his right hand which established a connexion between himself and the young girl. This was the signal for Doctor Sammet to advance towards Imma Spoelmann.
"Doctor Sammet. Yes." He desired the honour of presenting Miss Spoelmann to his Royal Highness.… "Miss Spoelmann, Royal Highness, the daughter of Mr. Spoelmann to whom this hospital is so much indebted."
Klaus Heinrich clapped his heels together and held out his hand in its white gauntlet, and, laying her small brown-gloved hand in it, she gave him a horizontal hand-shake, English fashion, at the same time making a sort of shy curtsey, without taking her big eyes off Klaus Heinrich's face. He could think of nothing more original to say than: "So you too are paying a visit to the hospital, Miss Spoelmann?"
And she answered as quickly as before, with a pout and the little haughty wag of her head. "Nobody can deny that everything points in that direction."
Herr Braunbart involuntarily raised his hand, Doctor Ueberbein looked down at his watch-chain in silence, and a short snigger escaped through the nose of one of the young surgeons, which was hardly opportune. The little pained look of bewilderment now showed on Klaus Heinrich's face. He said: "Of course.… As you are here.… So I shall be able to visit the institution in your company, Miss Spoelmann.… Captain von Braunbart, my aide-de-camp …" he added quickly, recognizing that his remark laid him open to a similar answer to the last. She responded by: "Countess Löwenjoul."
​The Countess made a dignified bow—with an enigmatic smile, a side glance into the unknown, which had something seductive about it. When, however, she let her strangely evasive gaze again dwell on Klaus Heinrich, who stood before her in a composed and military attitude, the laugh vanished from her face, an expression of sadness settled on her features, and for a second a look of something like hatred for Klaus Heinrich shone in her slightly swollen grey eyes. It was only a passing look. Klaus Heinrich had no time to notice it, and forgot it immediately. The two young surgeons were presented to Imma Spoelmann, and then Klaus Heinrich suggested that they should continue the tour all together.
They went upstairs to the first story; Klaus Heinrich and Imma Spoelmann in front, conducted by Doctor Sammet, then Countess Lowenjoul with Herr von Braunbart, and the young surgeons in the rear. Yes, the older children were here, up to fourteen years of age. An ante-room with wash-basins divided the girls' and the boys' rooms. In white bedsteads, with a name-plate at the head and a frame at the foot enclosing the temperature- and weight-charts—tended by nurses in white caps, and surrrounded by cleanliness and tidiness—lay the sick children, and coughs filled the room while Klaus Heinrich and Imma Spoelmann walked down between the rows.
He walked at her left hand, out of courtesy, with the same smile as when he visited exhibitions or inspected veterans, gymnastic associations, or guards of honour. But every time he turned his head to the right he found that Imma Spoelmann was watching him—he met her great black eyes, which were directed at him in a searching, questioning way. It was so peculiar, he never remembered experiencing anything so peculiar before, her way of looking at him with her great eyes, without any respect for him ​or anyone else, absolutely unembarrassed and free, quite unconcerned whether anybody noticed it or not.
When Doctor Sammet stopped at a bed to describe the case—the little girl's, for instance, whose broken white-bandaged leg stuck straight out along the bed—Miss Spoelmann listened attentively to him, that was quite clear; but while she listened she did not look at the speaker, but her eyes rested in turn on Klaus Heinrich and the pinched, quiet child who, her hands folded on her breast, gazed up at them from her back-rest—rested in turn on the Prince and the little victim, the history of whose case she shared with the Prince, as if she were watching Klaus Heinrich's sympathy, or were trying to read in his face the effect of Dr. Sammet's words; or maybe for some other reason.
Yes, this was especially noticeable in the case of the boy with the bullet through his arm and the boy who had been picked out of the water—two sad cases, as Dr. Sammet remarked. "A severed artery, sister," he said, and showed them the double wound in the boy's upper arm, the entry and exit of the revolver bullet. "The wound," said Doctor Sammet in an undertone to his guests, turning his back to the bed, "the wound was caused by his own father. This one was the lucky one. The man shot his wife, three of his children, and himself with a revolver. He made a bad shot at this boy."
Klaus Heinrich looked at the double wound. "What did the man do it for?" he asked hesitatingly, and Doctor Sammet answered: "In desperation, Royal Highness. It was shame and want which brought him to it. Yes." He said no more, just this commonplace—just as in the case of the boy, a ten-year-old, who had been picked out of the water. "He's wheezing," said Doctor Sammet, "he's still got some water in his lung. He was picked out of the river early this morning—yes. I may say that it is ​improbable that he fell into the water. There are many indications to the contrary. He had run away from home. Yes." He stopped.
And Klaus Heinrich again felt Miss Spoelmann looking at him with her big, black, serious eyes—with her glance which sought his own and seemed to challenge him in sistently to ponder with her the "sad cases," to grasp the essential meaning of Doctor Sammet's remarks, to penetrate to the hideous truths which were incorporated and crystallized in these two little invalid frames.… A little girl wept bitterly when the steaming and hissing inhaler, together with a scrapbook full of brightly coloured pictures, was planted at her bedside.
Miss Spoelmann bent over the little one. "It doesn't hurt," she said, "not a tiny bit. Don't cry." And as she straightened herself again she added quickly, pursing up her lips, "I guess it's not so much the apparatus as the pictures she's crying at." Everybody laughed. One of the young assistants picked up the scrapbook and laughed still louder when he looked at the pictures. The party passed on into the laboratory. Klaus Heinrich thought, as he went, how dry Miss Spoelmann's humour was. "I guess," she had said, and "not so much." She had seemed to find amusement not only in the pictures, but also in the neat and incisive mode of expression she had used. And that was indeed the very refinement of humour.…
The laboratory was the biggest room in the building. Glasses, retorts, funnels, and chemicals stood on the tables, as well as specimens in spirits which Doctor Sammet explained to his guests in a few quiet words. A child had choked in a mysterious way: here was his larynx with mushroom-like growths instead of the vocal chords. Yes. This, here in the glass, was a case of pernicious en largement of the kidney in a child, and there were dislocated joints. Klaus Heinrich and Miss Spoelmann ​looked at everything, they looked together into the bottles which Doctor Sammet held up to the window, and their eyes looked thoughtful while the same little look of repulsion hovered round their mouths.
They took turns too at the microscope, examined, with one eye placed to the lens, a malignant secretion, a piece of blue-stained tissue stuck on a slide, with tiny spots showing near the big patch. The spots were bacilli. Klaus Heinrich wanted Miss Spoelmann to take the first turn at the microscope, but she declined, knitting her brows and pouting, as much as to say: "On no account whatever." So he took the precedence, for it seemed to him that it really did not matter who got the first look at such serious and fearful things as bacilli. And after this they were conducted up to the second story, to the infants.
They both laughed at the chorus of squalls which reached their ears while they were still on the stairs. And then they went with their party through the ward between the beds, bent side by side over the bald-headed little creatures, sleeping with closed fists or screaming with all their might and showing their naked gums—they stopped their ears and laughed again. In a kind of oven, warmed to a moderate heat lay a new-born baby.
And Doctor Sammet showed his distinguished guests a pauper baby with the grey look of a corpse and hideous big hands, the sign of a miscarriage.… He lifted a squealing baby out of its cot, and it at once stopped screaming. With the touch of an expert he rested the limp head in the hollow of his hand and showed the little red creature blinking and twitching spasmodically to the two—Klaus Heinrich and Miss Spoelmann, who stood side by side and looked down at the infant. Klaus Heinrich stood watching with his heels together as Doctor Sammet laid the baby back in its cot, and when he turned round he met Miss Spoelmann's searching gaze, as he had expected.
​Finally they walked to one of the three windows of the ward and looked out over the squalid suburb, down into the street where, surrounded by children, the brown Court carriage and Imma's smart dark-red motor car stood one behind the other. The Spoelmanns' chauffeur, shapeless in his fur coat, was leaning back in his seat with one hand on the steering-wheel of the powerful car, and watched his companion, the footman in white, trying to start a conversation, by the carriage in front, with Klaus Heinrich's coachman.
"Our neighbours," said Doctor Sammet, holding back the white net curtain with one hand, "are the parents of our patients. Late in the evening the tipsy fathers roll shouting by. Yes."
They stood and listened, but Doctor Sammet said nothing further about the fathers and so they broke off, as they had now seen everything.
The procession, with Klaus Heinrich and Imma at the head, proceeded down the staircase and found the nurses again assembled in the front hall. Leave was taken with compliments and clapping together of heels, curtseys, and bows. Klaus Heinrich, standing stiffly in front of Doctor Sammet, who listened to him with his head on one side and his hand on his watch-chain, expressed himself, in his wonted form of words, highly satisfied with what he had seen, while he felt that Imma Spoelmann's great eyes were resting upon him. He, with Herr von Braunbart, accompanied Miss Spoelmann to her car when the leave-taking from the surgeons and nurses was over. Klaus Heinrich and Miss Spoelmann, while they crossed the pavement between children and women with children in their arms, and for a short time by the broad step of the motor car, exchanged the following remarks:
"It has been a great pleasure to meet you," he said.
​She answered nothing to this, but pouted and wagged her head a little from side to side.
"It was an absorbing inspection," he went on. "A regular eye-opener."
She looked at him with her big black eyes, then said quickly and lightly in her broken voice: "Yes, to a certain extent.…"
He ventured on the question: "I hope you are pleased with Schloss Delphinenort?"
To which she answered with a pout: "Oh, why not? It's quite a convenient house.…"
"Do you like being there better than at New York?" he asked. And she answered:
"Just as much. It's much the same. Much the same everywhere."
That was all. Klaus Heinrich, and one pace behind him Herr von Braunbart, stood with their hands to their helmets as the chauffeur slipped his gear in and the motor car shivered and started.
It may be imagined that this meeting did not long remain the private property of the Dorothea Hospital; on the contrary, it was the general topic of conversation before the day was out. The Courier published, under a sentimental poetical heading, a detailed description of the rencontre, which, without too violent a departure from the exact truth, yet succeeded in making such a powerful impression on the public mind, and evoked symptoms of such lively interest, that the vigilant newspaper was induced to keep a watchful eye for the future on any further rapprochements between the Spoelmann and Grimmburg houses. It could not report much.
It remarked a couple of times that his Royal Highness Prince Klaus Heinrich, when walking through the promenade after a performance at the Court Theatre, had stopped for a moment at the Spoelmanns' box to greet the ​ladies. And in its report of the fancy-dress charity bazaar, which took place in the middle of January in the Town Hall—a smart function, in which Miss Spoelmann, at the urgent request of the Committee, acted as seller—no small space was devoted to describing how Prince Klaus Heinrich, when the Court was making a round of the bazaar, had stopped before Miss Spoelmann's stall, how he had bought a piece or two of fancy glass (for Miss Spoelmann was selling porcelain and glass), and had lingered a good eight or ten minutes at her stall. It said nothing about the topic of the conversation. And yet it had not been without importance.
The Court (with the exception of Albrecht) had appeared in the Town Hall about noon. When Klaus Heinrich, with his newly bought pieces of glass in tissue paper on his knee, drove back to the "Hermitage," he had announced his intention of visiting Delphinenort and inspecting the Schloss in its renovated state, on the same occasion viewing Mr. Spoelmann's collection of glass. For three or four old pieces of glass had been included in Miss Spoelmann's stock which her father himself had given to the bazaar out of his collection, and one of them Klaus Heinrich had bought.
He saw himself again in a semicircle of people, stared at, alone, in front of Miss Spoelmann, and separated from her by the stall-counter, with its vases, jugs, its white and coloured groups of porcelain. He saw her in her red fancy dress, which, made in one piece, clung close to her neat though childish figure, while it exposed dark shoulders and arms, which were round and firm and yet like those of a child just by the wrist. He saw the gold ornament, half garland and half diadem, in the jet of her billowy hair, that showed a tendency to fall in smooth wisps on her forehead, her big, black, inquiring eyes in the pearly-white face, her full and tender mouth, pouting with habitual scorn when she spoke—and round about her in the great vaulted ​hall had been the scent of firs and a babel of noise, music, the clash of gongs, laughter, and the cries of sellers.
He had admired the piece of glass, the fine old beaker with its ornament of silver foliage, which she proffered to him, and she had said that it came from her father's collection. "Has your father, then, got many fine pieces like this?"—Of course. And presumably her father had not given the best items to the bazaar. She could guarantee that he had much finer pieces of glass. Klaus Heinrich would very much like to see them! Well, that might easily be managed, Miss Spoelmann had answered in her broken voice, while she pouted and wagged her head slightly from side to side. Her father, she meant, would certainly have no objection to showing the fruits of his zeal as a collector to one more of a long succession of intelligent visitors. The Spoelmanns were always at home at tea-time.
She had gone straight to the point, taking the hint for a definite offer, and speaking in an entirely off-hand way. In conclusion, to Klaus Heinrich's question, what day would suit best, she had answered: "Whichever you like, Prince, we shall be inexpressibly delighted."
"We shall be inexpressibly delighted"—those were her words, so mocking and pointed in the exaggeration that they almost hurt, and were difficult to listen to without wincing. How she had rattled and hurt the poor sister in the Hospital the other day! But all through there was something childish in her manner of speech; indeed, some sounds she made were just like those children make—not only on the occasion when she was comforting the little girl about the inhaler. And how large her eyes had seemed when they told her about the children's fathers and the rest of the sad story!
Next day Klaus Heinrich went to tea at Schloss Delphinenort, the very next. Miss Spoelmann had said he ​might come when it suited him. But it suited him the very next day, and as the matter seemed to him urgent, he saw no point in putting it off.
Shortly before five o'clock—it was already dark—he drove over the smooth roads of the Town Garden—bare and empty, for this part of it belonged to Mr. Spoelmann. Arc-lamps lit up the park, the big square spa-basin shim mered between the trees; behind it rose the white Schloss with its pillared porch, its spacious double staircase which led by gentle degrees between the wings up to the first floor, its high leaded windows, its Roman busts in the niches—and Klaus Heinrich, as he drove along the approach avenue of mighty chestnuts, saw the red-plush negro with his staff standing on guard at the foot of the staircase.
Klaus Heinrich crossed a brightly lighted stone hall, with a floor of gilt mosaic and with white statues of gods round it, passed straight over to the broad red-carpeted marble staircase, down which the Spoelmanns' major-domo, clean shaven, with shoulders squared and arms stiff, pot-bellied and haughty, advanced to receive the guest. He escorted him up into the tapestried and marble-chim neyed ante-room, where a couple of white-and-gold swans-down footmen took the Prince's cap and cloak, while the steward went in person to announce him to his master.… The footman held aside one of the tapestries for Klaus Heinrich, who descended two or three steps.
The scent of flowers met him, and he heard the soft plash of falling water; but just as the tapestry closed behind him, so wild and harsh a barking was heard that Klaus Heinrich, half deafened for a moment, stopped at the foot of the steps. Percival, the collie, had dashed at him in a fury. He pranced, he capered in uncontrollable passion, he pirouetted, beat his sides with his tail, planted his forefeet on the floor, and turned wildly round and round, and ​seemed like to burst with noise. A voice—not Imma's—called him off, and Klaus Heinrich found himself in a winter garden, a glass conservatory with white marble columns and a floor of big square marble flags. Palms of all kinds filled it, whose trunks and tops often reached close up to the glass ceiling. A flower-bed, consisting of countless pots arranged like the stones of a mosaic, lay in the strong moonlight of the arc lamp and filled the air with its scent. Out of a beautifully carved fountain, silver streams flowed into a marble pool, and ducks with strange and fantastic plumage swam about on the illuminated water. The back ground was filled by a stone walk with columns and niches.
It was Countess Löwenjoul who advanced towards the guest, and curtseyed with a smile.
"Your Royal Highness will not mind," she said, "our Percy is so uproarious. Besides, he's so unaccustomed to visitors. But he never touches anybody. Your Royal Highness must excuse Miss Spoelmann.… She'll be back soon. She was here just now. She was called away, her father sent for her. Mr. Spoelmann will be delighted.…"
And she conducted Klaus Heinrich to an arrangement of basket chairs with embroidered linen cushions which stood in front of a group of palms. She spoke in a brisk and emphatic tone, with her little head with its thin iron-grey hair bent on one side and her white teeth showing as she laughed. Her figure was distinctly graceful in the close-fitting brown dress she was wearing, and she moved as freshly and elegantly as an officer's wife. Only in her eyes, whose lids she kept blinking, there was something of mistrust or spite, something unintelligible. They sat down facing each other at the round garden-table, on which lay a few books. Percival, exhausted by his outburst, curled himself up on the narrow pearl-grey carpet on which the furniture stood. His black coat was like silk, with white paws, chest, and muzzle. He had a white collar, ​yellow eyes, and a parting along his back. Klaus Heinrich began a conversation for conversation's sake, a formal dialogue about nothing in particular, which was all he could do.
"I hope, Countess, that I have not come at an incon venient time. Luckily I need not feel myself an unauthorized intruder. I do not know whether Miss Spoelmann has told you.… She was so kind as to suggest my calling. It was about those lovely pieces of glass which Mr. Spoelmann so generously gave to yesterday's bazaar. Miss Spoelmann thought that her father would have no objection to letting me see the rest of his collection. That's why I'm here …"
The Countess ignored the question whether Imma had told her of the arrangement. She said: "This is tea-time, Royal Highness. Of course your visit is not inconvenient. Even if, as I hope will not be the case, Mr. Spoelmann were too unwell to appear.…"
"Oh, is he ill?" In reality Klaus Heinrich wished just a little that Mr. Spoelmann might be too unwell. He anticipated his meeting with him with vague anxiety.
"He was feeling ill to-day, Royal Highness. He had a touch of fever, shivering, and a little faintness. Dr. Watercloose was with him for a long time this morning. He was given an injection of morphia. There's some question of an operation being necessary."
"I am very sorry," said Klaus Heinrich quite honestly. "An operation? How dreadful!"
To which the Countess answered, letting her eyes wander: "Oh yes. But there are worse things in life—many much worse things than that."
"Undoubtedly," said Klaus Heinrich. "I can quite believe it." He felt his imagination stirred in a vague and general way by the Countess's allusion.
She looked at him with her head inclined to one side, and ​an expression of contempt on her face. Then her slightly distended grey eyes shifted, while she smiled the mysterious smile which Klaus Heinrich already knew and which had something seductive about it.
He felt it was necessary to resume the conversation.
"Have you lived long with the Spoelmanns, Countess?" he asked.
"A fairly long time," she answered, and appeared to calculate. "Fairly long. I have lived through so much, have had so many experiences, that I naturally cannot reckon to a day. But it was shortly after the blessing—soon after the blessing was vouchsafed to me."
"The blessing?" asked Klaus Heinrich.
"Of course," she said decidedly and with some agitation. "For the blessing happened to me when the number of my experiences had become too great, and the bow had reached breaking point, to use a metaphor. You are so young," she continued, forgetting to address him by his title, "so ignorant of all that makes the world so miserable and so depraved, that you can form no conception of what I have had to suffer. I brought an action in America which involved the appearance of several generals. Things came to light which were more than my temper could stand. I had to clear out several barracks without succeeding in bringing to light every loose woman. They hid themselves in the cupboards, some even under the floors, and that's why they continue torturing me beyond measure at nights. I should at once go back to my Schloss in Burgundy if the rain did not come through the roofs. The Spoelmanns knew that, and that is why it was so obliging of them to let me live with them indefinitely, my only duty being to put the innocent Imma on her guard against the world. Only of course my health suffers from my having the women sitting at nights on my chest and forcing me to look at their disgusting faces. And that is why I ask you ​to call me simply Frau Meier," she said in a whisper, leaning forward and touching Klaus Heinrich's arm with her hand. "The walls have ears, and it is absolutely necessary for me to keep up the incognito I was forced to assume in order to protect myself against the persecution of the odious creatures. You will do what I ask, will you not? Look on it as a joke ... a fad which hurts nobody.… Why not?"
She stopped.
Klaus Heinrich sat upright and braced up in his wicker chair opposite her and looked at her. Before leaving his rectilineal room, he had dressed himself with his valet Neumann's help with all possible care, as his life in the public eye required. His parting ran from over his left eye, straight up to the crown of his head, without a hair sticking up, and his hair was brushed up into a crest off the right side of his forehead. There he sat in his undress uniform, whose high collar and close fit helped him to maintain a composed attitude, the silver epaulettes of a major on his narrow shoulders, leaning slightly but not comfortably forward, collected, calm, with one foot slightly advanced, and with his right hand above his left on his sword-hilt. His young face looked slightly weary from the unreality, the loneliness, strictness, and difficulty of his life; he sat looking at the Countess with a friendly, clear, but composed expression in his eyes.
She stopped. Disenchantment and disgust showed themselves in her features, and, while something like hate towards Klaus Heinrich flamed up in her tired grey eyes, she blushed in the strangest of ways, for one half of her face turned red, the other white. Dropping her eyelids she answered: "I have been living with the Spoelmanns for three years, Royal Highness."
Percival darted forward. Dancing, springing, and wagging his tail he trotted towards his mistress—for Imma ​Spoelmann had come in—raised himself in a dignified way on his hind legs and laid his fore paws in greeting on her breast. His jaws were wide open, and his red tongue hung out between his ivory-white teeth. He looked like a heraldic supporter as he stood there before her.
She wore a wonderful dress of brick-red silk with loose hanging sleeves, and the breast covered with heavy gold embroidery. A big egg-shaped jewel on a pearl necklace lay on her bare neck, the skin of which was the colour of smoked meerschaum. Her blue-black hair was parted on one side and coiled, though a few smooth wisps tended to fall on her forehead. Holding Percival's head in her two narrow, ringless little hands, she looked into his face, saying, "Well, well, my friend. What a welcome! We are glad to see each other—we hated being parted, didn't we? Now go back and lie down." And she put his paws off the gold embroidery on her breast, and set him on his four paws again.
"Oh, Prince," she said. "Welcome to Delphinenort. You hate breaking your promise, I can see. I'm coming to sit next you. They'll tell us when tea is ready.… It's against all the rules, I know, for me to have kept you waiting. But my father sent for me—and besides you had somebody to entertain you." Her bright eyes passed from Klaus Heinrich to the Countess and back in a rather hesitating way.
"That's quite true," he said. And then he asked how Mr. Spoelmann was, and received a fairly reassuring answer. Mr. Spoelmann would have the pleasure of making Klaus Heinrich's acquaintance at tea-time, he begged to be excused till then.… What a lovely pair of horses Klaus Heinrich had in his brougham! And then they talked about their horses, about Klaus Heinrich's good-tempered brown Florian from the Hollerbrunn stud, about Miss Spoelmann's Arabian cream, the mare Fatma which had ​been given to Mr. Spoelmann by an oriental prince, about her fast Hungarian chestnuts, which she drove four-in-hand.
"Do you know the country round?" asked Klaus Heinrich. "Have you hunted with the Royal pack? Have you been to the 'Pheasantry'? There are lots of lovely excursions."
No, Miss Spoelmann was not at all clever in finding out new roads, and the Countess—well, her whole nature was unenterprising, so they always chose the same road, in the Town Gardens, for their ride. It was boring, perhaps, but Miss Spoelmann was not on the whole so biased as to need constant change and adventures. Then he said that they must go together some time to a meet of the hounds or to the "Pheasantry," whereupon she pursed her lips and said that that was an idea which might be discussed some time in the future. Then the major-domo came in and gravely announced that tea was ready.
They went through the tapestry hall with the marble fireplace, conducted by the strutting butler, accompanied by the dancing Percy, and followed by Countess Löwenjoul.
"Has the Countess been letting her tongue run away with her?" asked Imma en route, without any particular lowering of her voice.
Klaus Heinrich started and looked at the floor. "But she can hear us!" he said softly.
"No, she doesn't hear us," answered Imma. "I can read her face. When she holds her head crooked like that and blinks her eyes it means that she is wandering and deep in her thoughts. Did she let her tongue run away with her?"
"For a minute or two," said Klaus Heinrich. "I got the impression that the Countess 'let herself go' every now and then."
"She has had a lot of trouble." And Imma looked at him with the same big searching dark eyes with which she ​had scanned him in the Dorothea Hospital. "I'll tell you all about it another time. It's a long story."
"Yes," he said. "Some other time. Next time. On our ride perhaps."
"On our ride?"
"Yes, on our ride to the meet or to the 'Pheasantry.'"
"Oh, I forgot your preciseness, Prince, in the matter of appointments. Very well, on our ride. We go down here."
They found themselves at the back of the Schloss. Carpeted steps led from a gallery hung with big pictures, down into the white-and-gold garden room, behind the glass door of which lay the terrace. Everything—the big crystal lustres, which hung from the centre of the high, white-festooned ceiling, the regularly arranged arm-chairs with gilt frames and fancy upholstering, the heavy white silk curtains, the elaborate clock and the vases and gilt lamps on the white marble chimneypiece in front of the tall looking-glass, the massive, lion-footed gilt candelabra which towered on either side of the entrance—everything reminded Klaus Heinrich of the Old Schloss, of the Representation Chamber, in which he had played his part from his youth up; only that the candles here were shams, with yellow electric bulbs instead of wicks, and that everything of the Spoelmanns' was new and smart in Schloss Delphinenort. A swansdown footman was putting the last touch to the tea-table in a corner of the room; Klaus Heinrich noticed the electric kettle about which he had read in the Courier.
"Has Mr. Spoelmann been told?" asked the daughter of the house.… The butler bowed. "Then there's nothing," she said quickly and half mockingly, "to prevent us from taking our places and beginning without him. Come, Countess! I advise you, Prince, to unbuckle your sword, unless there are reasons unknown to me for your not doing so.…"
​"Thanks," said Klaus Heinrich, "no, there is no reason why I shouldn't." And he was angry with himself for not being smart enough to think of a more adroit answer.
The footman took his sword, and carried it off. They took their seats at the tea-table with the help of the butler, who held the backs and pushed the chairs under them. Then he retired to the top of the steps, where he remained in an elegant attitude.
"I must tell you, Prince," said Miss Spoelmann, pouring the water into the pot, "that my father won't drink any tea which I have not made with my own hands. He distrusts all tea which is handed round ready-made in cups. That is barred with us. You'll have to put up with it."
"Oh, I like it much better like this," said Klaus Heinrich, "it's much more comfortable and free-and-easy at a family tea like this.…" He broke off, and wondered why as he spoke these words a side-glance of hatred lighted on him from the eyes of Countess Löwenjoul. "And your course of study?" he asked. "May I ask about it? It's mathematics, I know. Don't you find it too much? Isn't it terribly brain-racking?"
"Absolutely not," she said. "It's just splendid; it's like playing in the breezes, so to speak, or rather out of the breezes, in a dust-free atmosphere. It's as cool there as in the Adirondacks."
"The what?"
"The Adirondacks. That's geography, Prince. Mountains over in the States, with lovely snowfields. We have a country cottage there, where we go in May. In summer we used to go to the sea-side."
"At any rate," he said, "I can testify to your zeal in your studies. You do not like being prevented from arriving punctually at your lectures. I haven't yet asked you whether you reached that one the other day up to time."
​"The other day?"
"Yes, a week or two ago. After the contretemps with the change of guard."
"Dear, dear, Prince, now you are beginning that too. That story seems to have reached from hut to palace. Had I known what a bother was going to come of it, I would rather have gone three times round the whole Schlossplatz. It even got into the newspapers, I'm told. And now of course the whole town thinks I am a regular fiend for temper and rudeness. But I am the most peaceful creature in the world, and only don't like being ordered about. Am I a fiend, Countess? I demand a truthful answer."
"No, you're an angel," said Countess Löwenjoul.
"H'm—angel, that's too much, that's too far the other way, Countess.…"
"No," said Klaus Heinrich, "no, not too far. I entirely believe the Countess.…"
"I'm much honoured. But how did your Highness hear about the adventure? Through the newspapers?"
"I was an eye-witness of it," said Klaus Heinrich.
"An eye-witness?"
"Yes. I happened to be standing at the window of the officers' mess, and saw the whole thing from beginning to end."
Miss Spoelmann blushed. There was no doubt about it, the pale skin of her face deepened in colour.
"Well, Prince," she said, "I assume that you had nothing better to do at the moment."
"Better?" he cried. "But it was a splendid sight. I give you my word that never in my life …"
Percival, who was lying with his forepaws crossed, by Miss Spoelmann, raised his head with a look of tense expectancy and beat the carpet with his tail. At the same moment the butler began to run, as fast as his ponderous frame would let him, down the steps to the lofty side-door ​over against the tea-table, and swiftly pulled aside the white silk portiere, sticking his double chin the while into the air with a majestic expression. Samuel Spoelmann, the millionaire, walked in.
He was a man of neat build with a strange face. He was clean shaven, with red cheeks and a prominent nose, his little eyes were of a metallic blue-black, like those of little children and animals, and had an absent and peevish look. The upper part of his head was bald, but behind and on his temples Mr. Spoelmann had a quantity of grey hair, dressed in a fashion not often seen among us. He wore it neither short nor long, but brushed up, sticking out, though cropped on the nape and round his ears. His mouth was small and finely chiselled. Dressed in a black frock-coat with a velvet waistcoat on which lay a long, thin, old-fashioned watch-chain, and soft slippers on his feet, he advanced quickly to the tea-table with a cross and pre-occupied expression on his face; but his face cleared up, it regained composure and tenderness when he caught sight of his daughter. Imma had gone to meet him.
"Greeting, most excellent father," she said, and throwing her brown little arms, in their loose brick-coloured hanging sleeves, round his neck, she kissed him on the bald spot which he offered her as he inclined his head.
"Of course you knew," she continued, "that Prince Klaus Heinrich was coming to tea with us to-day?"
"No; I'm delighted, delighted," said Mr. Spoelmann no less readily and in a grating voice. "Please don't move!" he said at once. And while he shook hands (Mr. Spoelmann's hand was thin and half-covered by his unstarched white cuff) with the Prince, who was standing modestly by the table, he nodded repeatedly to one side or the other. That was his way of greeting Klaus Heinrich. He was an alien, an invalid, and a man apart as regards wealth. He was forgiven and nothing further was expected of him— ​Klaus Heinrich recognized the fact, and took pains to recover his self-control.
"You are at home here in a sense," added Mr. Spoelmann, cutting the conversation short, and a passing gleam of malice played round his clean-shaven mouth. Then he gave the others an example by sitting down. It was the chair between Imma and Klaus Heinrich, opposite the Countess and the veranda door, which the butler pushed under him.
As Mr. Spoelmann showed no intention of apologizing for his unpunctuality, Klaus Heinrich said: "I am sorry to hear that you were unwell this morning, Mr. Spoelmann. I hope you are better."
"Thanks, better, not but all right," answered Mr. Spoelmann crossly. "How many spoonfuls did you put in?" he asked his daughter. He was alluding to the tea.
She had filled his cup, and she handed it to him.
"Four," said she. "One for each person. Nobody shall say that I stint my grey-haired father."
"What's that?" answered Mr. Spoelmann. "I'm not grey-haired. You ought to have your tongue clipped." And he took from a silver box a kind of rusk which seemed to be his own special dainty, broke it and dipped it peevishly in the golden tea, which he, like his daughter, drank without milk or sugar.
Klaus Heinrich began over again: "I am much excited at the prospect of seeing your collection, Mr. Spoelmann."
"All right," answered Mr. Spoelmann. "So you want to see my glass? Are you an amateur? A collector perhaps?"
"No," said Klaus Heinrich, "my love for glass has not extended to my becoming a collector."
"No time?" asked Mr. Spoelmann. "Do your military duties take so much time?"
Klaus Heinrich answered: "I'm no longer on the ​active list, Mr. Spoelmann. I am à la suite of my regiment. I wear the uniform, that's all."
"I see, make believe," said Mr. Spoelmann harshly. "What do you do all day, then?"
Klaus Heinrich had stopped drinking tea, had pushed his things away in the course of the conversation which demanded his undivided attention. He sat upright and defended himself, feeling the while that Imma Spoelmann's big, black, searching eyes were resting on him.
"I have duties at Court, with the ceremonies and big occasions. I have also to represent the State in» a military capacity, at the swearing-in of recruits and the presentation of colours. Then I have to hold levies as deputy for my brother, the Grand Duke. And then there are little journeys on duty to the provincial centres for unveilings and dedications and other public solemnities."
"I see," said Mr. Spoelmann. "Ceremonies, solemnities, food for spectators. No, that sort of thing's beyond me. I tell you once for all, that I wouldn't give a farthing for your calling. That's my standpoint, sir."
"I entirely understand," said Klaus Heinrich. He sat up stiffly in his uniform and smiled uneasily.
"Of course it needs practice like everything else," Mr. Spoelmann went on in a little less bitter tone of voice—"practice and training, I can see. For myself I shall never as long as I live cease feeling angry when I am obliged to play the prodigy."
"I only hope," said Klaus Heinrich, "that our people are not wanting in respect.…"
"Thanks, not so bad," answered Mr. Spoelmann. "The people are at least friendly here; one doesn't see. murder written in their eyes."
"I hope, Mr. Spoelmann," and Klaus Heinrich felt more at his ease, now that the conversation had turned, and the questioning lay with him, "that, notwithstanding the ​unusual circumstances, you continue to enjoy your stay amongst us."
"Thanks," said Mr. Spoelmann, "I'm quite comfortable, and the water is the only thing which really does do me some good."
"You did not find it a wrench to leave America?"
Klaus Heinrich felt a look, a quick, suspicious, shy look, which he could not interpret.
"No," said Mr. Spoelmann, sharply and crossly. That was all his answer to the question whether he felt it a wrench to leave America.
A pause ensued. Countess Löwenjoul held her smooth little head inclined to one side, and smiled a_distant Madonna-like smile. Miss Spoelmann watched Klaus Heinrich fixedly with her big black eyes, as if testing the effect of her father's extraordinary boorishness on the guest,—indeed, Klaus Heinrich felt that she was waiting with resignation and sympathy for him to get up and take his departure for good and all. He met her eyes, and remained. Mr. Spoelmann, for his part, drew out a gold case and took out a fat cigarette, which, when lighted, diffused a delicious fragrance.
"Smoke?" he asked.… And as Klaus Heinrich found that there was no objection, he helped himself, after Mr. Spoelmann, out of the proffered case.
They then discussed various topics before proceeding to an inspection of the glass—chiefly Klaus Heinrich and Miss Spoelmann, for the Countess's thoughts were wandering, and Mr. Spoelmann only interpolated a cross remark now and then: the local theatre, the huge ship in which the Spoelmanns had crossed to Europe. No, they had not used their yacht for the purpose. Its primary object was to take Mr. Spoelmann to sea in the evening in the heat of summer, when he was tied to his business and Imma and the Countess were in Newport; he used to ​pass the night on deck. She was now lying at Venice. But they had crossed in a huge steamer, a floating hotel with concert rooms and gymnasia. "She had five storeys," said Miss Spoelmann.
"Counting from below?" asked Klaus Heinrich. And she answered at once:
"Of course. Six, counting from above."
He got muddled and lost his bearings and it was a long time before he realized that she was making fun of him. Then he tried to explain himself and to make hTs simple question clear, explaining that he meant to ask whether she included the under-water holds, the cellars so to speak, in the five—in short, to prove that he was not lacking in common sense, and at last he joined heartily in the merriment which was the result of his efforts. As for the Court Theatre, Miss Spoelmann gave it as her opinion, with a pout and a wag of the head, that the actress who played the ingenue should be strongly recommended to go through the cure at Marienbad, coupled with a course of lessons in dancing and deportment, while the hero should be warned that a voice as resonant as his should be used most sparingly, even in private life.… All the same, Miss Spoelmann expressed her warm admiration for the theatre in question.
Klaus Heinrich laughed and wondered, a little oppressed by so much smartness. How well she spoke, how pointed and incisive were her words! They discussed the operas also and the plays which had been produced during the winter, and Imma Spoelmann contradicted Klaus Heinrich's judgments, contradicted him in every case, just as if she thought that not to contradict would show a mean spirit; the superior wit of her tongue left him dazed, and the great black eyes in her pearl-white face glittered from sheer joy in her dialectic skill, while Mr. Spoelmann leaned back in his chair, holding the fat cigarette between his lips ​and blinking through its smoke, and gazed at his daughter with fond satisfaction.
More than once Klaus Heinrich showed in his face the look of pained bewilderment which he had noticed on a previous occasion on the face of the good sister, and yet he felt convinced that it was not Imma Spoelmann's intention to wound his feelings, that she did not consider him humbled because he was not successful in standing up to her, that she rather let his poor answers pass, as if she considered that he had no need of a sharp wit to defend him—it was only she who had. But how was that, and why? He thought involuntarily of Ueberbein at many of her sallies, of the nimble-tongued blusterer Ueberbein, who was a natural misfortune, and had grown up in conditions which he described as favourable. A youth of misery, loneliness, and misfortune, shut out from the blessings of fortune—such a man knew no luxury, no comfort, he saw himself clearly and cruelly thrown on his own resources, which assuredly gave him an advantage over those who "knew not necessity."
But Imma Spoelmann sat there in her red-gold dress at the table, reclining indolently, with the mocking look of a spoiled child; there she sat in confident ease, while her tongue ran on sharply and freely, as befitted an atmosphere of refinement and lively wit. But why did she give it play? Klaus Heinrich pondered the question, the while they discussed Atlantic steamers and plays. He sat bolt upright at the table, in a dignified and uncomfortable attitude, while he concealed his left hand, and more than once he felt a sidelong glance of hatred from the eyes of Countess Löwenjoul.
A servant came in and handed Mr. Spoelmann a telegram on a silver salver. Mr. Spoelmann tore it open crossly, glanced through it, blinking and with the remains of his cigarette in the corner of his mouth, and threw it ​back on the salver, with the curt order: "Mr. Phlebs." Thereupon he lighted a new cigarette.
Miss Spoelmann said: "In spite of distinct medical orders, that's the fifth cigarette you've had to-day. Let me tell you that the unbridled passion with which you abandon yourself to the vice little beseems your grey hairs."
Mr. Spoelmann obviously tried to laugh, and as obviously failed; the acid tone of his daughter's words was not to his liking, and he flushed up.
"Silence!" he snarled. "You think you can say anything in fun, but please spare me your saucy jokes, chatterbox!"
Klaus Heinrich, appalled, looked at Imma, who turned her big eyes on her father's angry face, and then sadly dropped her head. Of course she had not meant any offence, she had simply amused herself with the strange, swelling words which she used to poke her fun; she had expected to raise a laugh, and had failed dismally.
"Father, darling father!" she said beseechingly, and crossed over to stroke Mr. Spoelmann's flushed cheeks.
"Surely," he grumbled on, "you've grown out of that sort of thing by now." But then he yielded to her blandishments, let her kiss the top of his head, and swallowed his anger. Klaus Heinrich, when peace was restored, alluded to the collection of glass, whereupon the party left the tea-table and went into the adjoining museum, with the exception of Countess Löwenjoul, who withdrew with a deep curtsey. Mr. Spoelmann himself switched on the electric light in the chandeliers.
Handsome cabinets in the style of the whole Schloss, with swelling curves and rounded glass doors, alternated with rich silk chairs all round the room. In these cabinets Mr. Spoelmann's collection of glass was displayed. Yes, there could be no doubt that it was the most complete ​collection in either hemisphere, and the glass which Klaus Heinrich had acquired was merely a most modest sample of it. It began in one corner of the room with the earliest artistic productions of the industry, with finds of heathenish designs from the culture of the earliest times; then came the products of the East and West of every epoch; next, wreathed, flourished, and imposing vases and beakers from Venetian blow-pipes and costly pieces from Bohemian huts, German tankards, picturesque Guild and Electorate bowls, mixed with grotesque animals and comic figures, huge crystal cups, which reminded one of the Luck of Edenhall in the song, and in whose facets the light broke and sparkled; ruby-coloured glasses like the Holy Grail; and finally the best samples of the latest development of the art, fragile blossoms on impossibly brittle stems, and fancy glasses in the latest fashionable shape, made iridescent with the vapours of precious metals. The three, followed by Percival, who also examined the collection, walked slowly round the hall; and Mr. Spoelmann related in his harsh voice the origin of particular pieces, taking them carefully off their velvet stands with his thin, soft-cuffed hand, and holding them up to the electric light.
Klaus Henrich had had plenty of practice in visits of in spection, in putting questions and making adroit remarks, so that he was well able at the same time to ponder over Imma Spoelmann's mode of expressing herself, that peculiar mode which worried him not a little. What amazing freedom she allowed herself! What extraordinary remarks she allowed herself to make! "Passion," "vice," where did she get the words from? where did she learn to use them so glibly? Had not Countess Löwenjoul, who herself dealt with the same topics in a confused sort of way, and had obviously seen the seamy side of life, described her as quite innocent!
​And the description was undoubtedly correct, for was she not an exception by birth like himself, brought up like a girl "born to be queen," kept apart from the busy strife of men and from all the turmoil to which those sinister words corresponded in the life of reality? But she had uttered the words glibly, and had treated them as a joke. Yes, that was it, this dainty creature in her red-gold gown was merely a wielder of words; she knew no more of life than those words, she played with the most serious and most awful of them as with coloured stones, and was puzzled when she made people angry by their use. Klaus Heinrich's heart, as he thought of this, filled with sympathy.
It was nearly seven o'clock when he asked for his carriage to be called—slightly uneasy about his long stay, in view of the Court and the public. His departure evoked a fresh and terrifying demonstration on the part of Percival, the collie. Every alteration or interruption in a situation seemed to throw the noble animal off his moral balance. Quivering, yelping, and deaf to all blandishments, he stormed through the rooms and the hall and up and down the steps, drowning the words of leave-taking in his hubbub. The butler did the Prince the honours as far as the floor with the statues of gods. Mr. Spoelmann did not accompany him any distance. Miss Spoelmann made the position clear: "I am convinced that your sojourn in the bosom of our family has charmed you, Prince." And he was left wondering whether the joke lay in the expression "the bosom of our family" or in the actual fact. Anyhow, Klaus Heinrich was at a loss for a reply.
Leaning back in the corner of his brougham, rather sore and battered, and yet stimulated by the unusual treatment he had experienced, he drove home, through the dark Town Gardens to the Hermitage, returned to his ​sober Empire room, where he dined with von Schulenburg-Tressen and Braunbart-Schellendorf. Next day he read the comments in the Courier. They amounted only to a statement that yesterday his Royal Highness Prince Klaus Heinrich went to Schloss Delphinenort for tea, and inspected Mr. Spoelmann's renowned collection of fancy glass.
And Klaus Heinrich continued to live his unreal life, and to carry out his exalted calling. He uttered his gracious speeches, made his gestures, represented his people at the Court and at the President of the Council's great ball, gave free audiences, lunched in the officers' mess of the Grenadier Guards, showed himself at the Court Theatre, and bestowed on this and that district of the country the privilege of his presence. With a smile, and with heels together, he carried out all due formalities and did his irksome duty with complete self-possession, albeit he had at this time so much to think of—about the peppery Mr. Spoeknann, the muddle-headed Countess Löwenjoul, the harum-scarum Percy, and especially about Imma, the daughter of the house. Many a question to which his first visit to Delphinenort had given rise he was not yet in a position to answer, but only succeeded in solving as the result of further intercourse with the Spoelmanns, which he maintained to the eager and at last feverish interest of the public, and which advanced a step further when the Prince in the early morning one day, to the astonishment of his suite, his servants, and himself—indeed, partly involuntarily, and as if carried along by destiny—appeared alone and on horseback at Delphinenort, for the purpose of taking Miss Spoelmann, whom he disturbed in her mathematical studies at the top of the Schloss, for a ride.
The grip of winter had relaxed early in this ever-to-be-remembered year. After a mild January, the middle of February had seen the coming of a preliminary spring ​with birds and sunshine and balmy breezes, and as Klaus Heinrich lay on the first of these mornings at the Hermitage in his roomy old mahogany bed, from one of whose posts the spherical crown was missing, he felt himself, as it were, impelled by a strange hand and irresistibly inspired to deeds of boldness.
He rang the bell-pull for Neumann (they only had draw-bells at the Hermitage), and ordered Florian to be ready saddled in an hour's time. Should a horse be got ready for the groom too? No, it was not necessary. Klaus Heinrich said that he wanted to ride alone. Then he gave himself into Neumann's skilful hands for his morning toilette, breakfasted impatiently below in the garden room, and mounted his horse at the foot of the terrace. With his spurred top-boots in the stirrups, the yellow reins in his brown-gloved right hand, and the left planted on his hip under his open cloak, he rode at a walking pace through the soft morning, scanning the still bare branches for the birds whose twittering he heard. He rode through the public part of his park, through the Town Gardens and the grounds of Delphinenort. He reached it at half-past nine. Great was the general surprise.
At the main gate he gave Florian over to an English groom. The butler, who was crossing the mosaic hall busy on his household duties, stood still, taken aback at the sight of Klaus Heinrich. To the inquiry which the Prince addressed to him, in a clear and almost haughty voice, about the ladies, he did not even reply, but turned helplessly towards the marble staircase, gazing dumbly at the top step, for there stood Mr. Spoelmann.
It seemed that he had just finished breakfast, and was in the best of tempers. His hands were plunged deep in his pockets, his lounge coat drawn back from his velvet waistcoat, and the blue smoke of his cigarette was making him blink.
​"Well, young Prince?" he said, and stared down at him.…
Klaus Heinrich saluted and hurried up the red stair-carpet. He felt that the situation could only be saved by swiftness and, so to speak, by an attack by storm.
"You will be astounded, Mr. Spoelmann," he said, "at this early hour &hellip" He was out of breath, and the fact disturbed him greatly, he was so little used to it.
Mr. Spoelmann answered him by a look and a shrug of the shoulders, as much as to say that he could control himself, but desired an explanation.
"The fact is, we have an appointment …" said Klaus Heinrich. He was standing two steps below the million aire and was speaking up him. "An appointment for a ride between Miss Imma and myself.… I have promised to show the ladies the 'Pheasantry' and the Court Kennels.… Miss Imma told me that she knew nothing about the surrounding country. It was agreed that on the first fine day … It's such a lovely day to-day.… It is of course subject to your approval.…"
Mr. Spoelmann shrugged his shoulders, and made a face as if to say: "Approval—why so?"
"My daughter is grown up," he said. "I don't interfere. If she rides, she rides. But I don't think she has time. You must find that out for yourself. She's in there." And Mr. Spoelmann pointed his chin towards the tapestry door, through which Klaus Heinrich had already once passed.
"Thanks," said Klaus Heinrich. "I'll go and see for myself." And he ran up the remaining steps, pushed the tapestry hanging aside with a determined gesture, and went down the steps into the sunlit, flower-scented winter garden.
In front of the splashing fountain and the basin with fancy-feathered ducks sat Imma Spoelmann leaning over ​a table, her back turned to the incomer. Her hair was down. It hung black and glossy on each side of her head, covered her shoulders, and allowed nothing to be seen but a shadow of the childlike quarter profile of her face, which showed white as ivory against the darkness of her hair. There she sat absorbed in her studies, working at the figures in the notebook before her, her lips pressed on the back of her left hand, and her right grasping the pen.
The Countess too was there, also busy writing. She sat some way off under the palms, where Klaus Heinrich had first conversed with her, and wrote sitting upright with her head on one side, a pile of closely scribbled, note-paper lying at her side. The clank of Klaus Heinrich's spurs made her look up. She looked at him with half-closed eyes for two seconds, the long pen poised in her hand, then rose and curtseyed. "Imma," she said, "his Royal Highness Prince Klaus Heinrich is here."
Miss Spoelmann turned quickly round in her basket chair, shook her hair back and gazed without speaking at the intruder with big, startled eyes, until Klaus Heinrich had bid the ladies good-morning with a military salute. Then she said in her broken voice: "Good-morning to you too, Prince. But you are too late for breakfast. We've finished long ago."
Klaus Heinrich laughed.
"Well, it's lucky," he said, "that both parties have had breakfast, for now we can start at once for a ride."
"A ride?"
"Yes, as we agreed."
"We agreed?"
"No, don't say that you've forgotten!" he said pleadingly. "Didn't I promise to show you the country round? Weren't we going for a ride together when it was fine? Well, to-day it's glorious. Just look out …"
"It's not a bad day," she said, "but you go too fast, ​Prince. I remember that there was some suggestion of a ride at some future time—but surely not so soon as this? Might I not at least have expected some sort of notification, if your Highness will allow the word? You must allow that I can't ride like this about here."
And she stood up to show her morning dress, which consisted of a loose gown of many-coloured silk and an open green-velvet jacket.
"No," he said, "unfortunately you cannot. But I'll wait here while you both change. It's quite early.…"
"Uncommonly early. But in the second place I am rather busy with my innocent studies, as you saw. I've got a lecture at eleven o'clock."
"No," he cried, "to-day you must not grind at algebra, Miss Imma; you must not play in the vacuum, as you put it! Look at the sun!… May I?…" And he went to the table and took up the notebook.
What he saw made his head swim. A fantastic hocus-pocus, a witches' sabbath of abbreviated symbols, written in a childish round hand which was the obvious result of Miss Spoelmann's peculiar way of holding her pen, covered the pages. There were Greek and Latin letters of various heights, crossed and cancelled, arranged above and below cross lines, covered by other lines, enclosed in round brackets, formulated in square brackets. Single letters, pushed forward like sentries, kept guard above the main bodies. Cabalistic signs, quite unintelligible to the lay mind, cast their arms round letters and ciphers, while fractions stood in front of them and ciphers and letters hovered round their tops and bottoms. Strange syllables, abbreviations of mysterious words, were scattered everywhere, and between the columns were written sentences and remarks in ordinary language, whose sense was equally beyond the normal inteligence, and conveyed no more to the reader than an incantation.
​Klaus Heinrich looked at the slight form, which stood by him in the shimmering frock, becurtained by her dark hair, and in whose little head all this lived and meant something. He said, "Can you really waste a lovely morning over all this God-forsaken stuff?"
A glance of anger met him from her big eyes. Then she answered with a pout:
"Your Highness seems to wish to excuse yourself for the want of intelligence you recently displayed with regard to your own exalted calling."
"No," he said, "not so! I give you my word that I respect your studies most highly. I grant that they bother me, I could never understand anything of that sort. I also grant that to-day I feel some resentment against them, as they seem likely to prevent us from going for a ride."
"Oh, I'm not the only one to interfere with your wish for exercise, Prince. There's the Countess too. She was writing—chronicling the experiences of her life, not for the world, but for private circulation, and I guarantee that the result will be a work which will teach you as well as me a good deal."
"I am quite sure of it. But I am equally sure that the Countess is incapable of refusing a request from you."
"And my father? There's the next stumbling-block. You know his temper. Will he consent?"
"He has consented. If you ride, you ride. Those were his words.…"
"You have made sure of him beforehand, then? I'm really beginning to admire your circumspection. You have assumed the rôle of a Field Marshal, although you are not really a soldier, only a make-believe one, as you told us long ago. But there's yet one more obstacle, and that is decisive. It's going to rain."
"No, that's a very weak one. The sun is shining.…"
​"It's going to rain. The air is much too soft. I made sure of it when we were in the Spa garden before breakfast. Come and look at the barometer if you don't believe me. It's hanging in the hall.&hellip"
They went out into the tapestry hall, where a big weather-glass hung near the marble fireplace. The Countess went with them. Klaus Heinrich said: "It's gone up."
"Your Highness is pleased to deceive yourself," answered Miss Spoelmann. "The refraction misleads you."
"That's beyond me."
"The refraction misleads you."
"I don't know what that is, Miss Spoelmann. It's the same as with the Adirondacks. I've not had much schooling, that's a necessary result of my kind of existence. You must make allowances for me."
"Oh, I humbly beg your pardon. I gught to have remembered that one must use ordinary words when talking to your Highness. You are standing crooked to the hand and that makes it look to you as if it had risen. If you would bring yourself to stand straight in front of the glass, you would see that the black has not risen above the gold hand, but has actually dropped a little below it."
"I really believe you are right," said Klaus Heinrich sadly. "The atmospheric pressure there is higher than I thought!"
"It is lower than you thought."
"But how about the falling quicksilver?"
"The quicksilver falls at low pressure, not at high, Royal Highness."
"Now I'm absolutely lost."
"I think, Prince, that you're exaggerating your ignorance by way of a joke, so as to hide what its extent really is. But as the atmospheric pressure is so high that the quicksilver drops, thus showing an absolute disregard for ​the laws of nature, let's go for a ride, Countess—shall we? I cannot assume the responsibility of sending the Prince back home again now that he has once come. He can wait in there till we're ready.…"
When Imma Spoelmann and the Countess came back to the winter garden they were dressed for riding, Imma in a close-fitting black habit with breast-pockets and a three-cornered felt hat, the Countess in black cloth with a man's starched shirt and high hat. They went together down the steps, through the mosaic hall, and out into the open air, where between the colonnade and the big basin two grooms were waiting with the horses. But they had not yet mounted when with a loud barking, which was the expression of his wild excitement, Percival, the collie, prancing and leaping about, tore out of the Schloss and began a frenzied dance round the horses, who tossed their heads uneasily.…
"I thought so," said Imma, patting her favourite Fatma's head, "there was no hiding it from him. He found it all out at the last moment. Now he intends to come with us and to make a fine to-do about it too. Shall we drop the whole thing, Prince?"
But although Klaus Heinrich understood that he might just as well have allowed the groom to ride in front with the silver trumpet, so far as calling public attention to their expedition was concerned, yet he said cheerfully that Percival must come too; he was a member of the family and must learn the neighbourhood like the rest.
"Well, where shall we go?" asked Imma as they rode at a walk down the chestnut avenue. She rode between Klaus Heinrich and the Countess. Percival barked in the van. The English groom, in cockaded hat and yellow boot-tops, rode at a respectful distance behind.
"The Court Kennels are fine," answered Klaus Heinrich, "but it is a bit farther to the 'Pheasantry,' and we have ​time before lunch. I should like to show you the Schloss. I spent three years there as a boy. It was a seminary, you know, with tutors and other boys of my age. That's where I got to know my friend Ueberbein, Doctor Ueberbein, my favourite tutor."
"You have a friend?" asked Miss Spoelmann, with some surprise, and gazed at him. "You must tell me about him some time. And you were educated at the 'Pheasantry,' were you? Then we must see it, because you're obviously set on it. Trot!" she said as they turned into a loose riding-path. "There lies your hermitage, Prince. There's plenty for the ducks to eat in your pond. Let's give a wide berth to the Spa gardens, if that does not take us far out of our way."
Klaus Heinrich agreed, so they left the park and trotted across country to reach the high-road which led to their goal to the north-west. In the town gardens they were greeted with surprise by a few promenaders, whose greetings Klaus Heinrich acknowledged by raising his hand to his cap, Imma Spoelmann with a grave and rather embarrassed inclination of her dark head in the three-cornered hat. By now they had reached the open country, and were no longer likely to meet people. Now and then a peasant's cart rolled along the road, or a crouching bicyclist ploughed his way along it. But they turned aside from the road when they reached the meadowland, which provided better going for their horses. Percival danced backwards in front of them, feverish and restless as ever, turning, springing, and wagging his tail—his breath came fast, his tongue hung far out of his foaming jaws, and he vented his nervous exaltation in a succession of short, sobbing yelps. Farther on he dashed off, following some scent with pricked ears and short springs, while his wild barking echoed through the air.
They discussed Fatma, which Klaus Heinrich had not ​yet seen close, and which he admired immensely. Fatma had a long, muscular neck and small, nodding head with fiery eyes; she had the slender legs of the Arab type, and a bushy tail. She was white as the moonlight, and saddled, girt, and bridled with white leather. Florian, a rather sleepy brown, with a short back, hogged mane, and yellow stockings, looked as homely as a donkey by the side of the distinguished foreigner, although he was carefully groomed. Countess Löwenjoul rode a big cream called Isabeau. She had an excellent seat, with her tall, straight figure, but she held her small head in its huge hat on one side, and her lids were half closed and twitched. Klaus Heinrich addressed some remarks to her behind Miss Spoelmann's back, but she did not answer, and went riding on with half-shut eyes, gazing in front of her with a Madonna-like expression, and Imma said:
"Don't let's bother the Countess, Prince, her thoughts are wandering."
"I hope," he said, "that the Countess was not annoyed at having to come with us."
And he was distinctly taken aback when Imma Spoelmann answered casually: "To tell the truth, she very likely was."
"Because of your sums?" he asked.
"Oh, the sums? They're not so urgent, only a way of passing the time—although I hope to get a good lot of useful information out of them. But I don't mind telling you, Prince, that the Countess is not enthusiastic on the subject of yourself. She has expressed herself to that effect to me. She said you were hard and stern and affected her like a cold douche."
Klaus Heinrich reddened.
"I know well," he said quietly, looking down at his reins, "that I don't act as a cordial, Miss Spoelmann, or, at any rate, only at a distance.… That, too, is inseparable from my kind of existence, as I said. But I am not ​conscious of having shown myself hard and stern to the Countess."
"Probably not in words," she replied, "but you did not allow her to let herself go, you did not do her the kindness of letting her tongue run for a little, that's why she's vexed with you—and I know quite well what you did, how you embarrassed the poor thing and gave her a cold douche—quite well," she repeated, and turned her head away.
Klaus Heinrich did not answer. He kept his left hand planted on his hip, and his eyes were tired. Then he said:
"You know quite well? So I act like a cold douche on you too, Miss Spoelmann, do I?"
"I warn you," she answered at once in her broken voice, and wagging her head from side to side, "on no account to overrate the effect you have upon me, Prince." And she suddenly set Fatma off at a gallop and flew at such a pace over the fields towards the dark mass of the dis tant pine-woods that neither the Countess nor Klaus Heinrich could keep up with her. Not till she reached the edge of the wood through which the high-road ran did she halt and turn her horse to look mockingly at her followers.
Countess Löwenjoul on her cream was the first to come up with the runaway. Then came Florian, foaming and much exhausted by his unusual exertion. They all laughed and their breath came fast as they entered the echoing wood. The Countess had awakened and chatted merrily, making lively, graceful gestures and showing her white teeth. She poked fun at Percival, whose temper had again been excited by the gallop, and who was careering wildly among the trunks in front of the horses.
"Royal Highness," she said, "you ought to see him jump and turn somersaults. He can take a ditch six yards broad, and does it so lightly and gracefully, you'd ​be delighted. But only of his own accord, mind you, of his free will, for I believe he'd rather let himself be whipped to death than submit to any training or teaching of tricks. He is, one might say, his own trainer by nature, and though sometimes unruly he is never rough. He is a gentleman, an aristocrat, and full of character. He's as proud as you like, and though he seems mad he's quite able to control himself. Nobody has ever heard him cry for pain when punished and hurt. He only eats, too, when he is hungry, and at other times won't look at the most tempting dainties. In the morning he has cream … he must be fed. He wears himself out, he's quite thin under his glossy coat, you can feel all his ribs. For I'm afraid he'll never grow to be old, but will fall an early victim to consumption. The street curs persecute him, they go for him in every street, but he jumps clear of them, and if they succeed in joining issue with him, he distributes a few bites with his splendid teeth which the rabble don't forget in a hurry. One must love such a compound of chivalry and virtue."
Imma agreed, in words which were the most serious and grave which Klaus Heinrich had ever heard from her mouth.
"Yes," she said, "you're a good friend to me, Percy, I shall always love you. A veterinary surgeon said you were half mad and advised us to have you put away, as you were impossible and a constant danger to us. But they shan't take my Percy from me. He is impossible, I know, and often an incumbrance, but he's always appealing and noble, and I love him dearly."
The Countess continued to talk about the collie's nature, but her remarks soon became disconnected and confused, and lapsed into a monologue accompanied by lively and elegant gestures. At last, after an acid look at Klaus Heinrich, her thoughts again began to wander.
Klaus Heinrich felt happy and cheered, whether as the ​result of the canter—for which he had had to brace him self up, for, though a decent figure on a horse, his left hand prevented him from being a strong rider—or for some other reason. After leaving the pine-wood they rode along the fiuiet high-road between meadows and furrowed fields, with a peasant's hut or a country inn here and there. As they drew near the next wood, he asked in a low voice:
"Won't you fulfil your promise and tell me about the Countess? What is your companion's history?"
"She is my friend," she answered, "and in a sense my governess too, although she did not come to us till I was grown up. That was three years ago, in New York, and the Countess was then in a terrible state. She was on the brink of starvation," said Miss Spoelmann, and as she said it she fastened her big black eyes with a searching, startled look on Klaus Heinrich.
"Really starvation?" he asked, and returned her look.…" Do please go on."
"Yes, I said that too when she came to us, and although I, of course, saw quite well that her mind was slightly affected, she made such an impression upon me that I persuaded my father to let her be my companion."
"What took her to America? Is she a countess by birth?" asked Klaus Heinrich.
"Not a countess, but of noble birth, brought up in refined and luxurious surroundings, sheltered and protected, as she expressed it to me, from every wind, because from childhood she had been impressionable and sensitive. But then she married a Count Löwenjoul, a cavalry captain—a strange specimen of the aristocracy, according to her account—not quite up to the mark, to put it mildly."
"What was wrong with him?" asked Klaus Heinrich.
​"I can't exactly tell you, Prince. You must take into consideration the rather obscure way in which the Countess puts what she has to say. But, to judge from what she has told me, he must have been just about as arrant a scamp as one could well imagine—a regular blackguard."
"I see," said Klaus Heinrich, "what's called a hard case, or a tough proposition."
"Exactly; we'll say man of the world—but in the most comprehensive and unlimited sense, for, to judge by the Countess's remarks, there were no limits in his case."
"No, that's what I too gathered," said Klaus Heinrich. "I've met several people of that sort—regular devils, so to speak. I heard of one such, who used to make love in his motor car, even when it was going at full speed."
"Did your friend Ueberbein tell you of him?"
"No, somebody else. Ueberbein would not think it proper to mention anything of that sort to me."
"Then he must be a useless sort of friend, Prince."
"You'll think better of him when I tell you more about him, Miss Spoelmann. But please go on!"
"Well, I don't know whether Löwenjoul behaved like your roue. Anyhow he behaved disgracefully."
"I expect he gambled and drank."
"I guess so. And besides that of course he made love, neglected the Countess and carried on with the loose women that are always to be found everywhere—at first behind her back, and later no longer behind her back but impudently and openly without any regard for her feelings."
"But tell me, why did she ever marry him?"
"She married him against her parents' will, because, as she has told me, she was in love with him. For in the first place, he was a handsome man when she first met him—he fell off in his looks later. In the second place, his reputation as a man of the world had gone before him, and that, according to her, constituted a sort of irresistible ​attraction for her, for, though she had been so well sheltered and protected, nothing would shake her in her resolve to share her life with him. If one thinks it over, one can quite understand it."
"Yes," he said, "I can quite understand it. She wanted to have her fling, as it were, to get her eyes opened. And she saw the world with a vengeance."
"You may put it like that if you like: though the expression seems to me rather too flippant to describe her experiences. Her husband ill-treated her."
"Do you mean that he beat her?"
"Yes, he ill-treated her physically. But now comes something, Prince, which you too will not have heard about before. She gave me to understand that he ill-treated her not only in a temper, not only in anger and rage, but also without being exasperated, simply for his own satisfaction. I mean, that his caresses were so revolting as to amount to ill-treatment."
Klaus Heinrich was silent. Both looked very grave. At last he asked: "Did the Countess have any children?"
"Yes, two. They died quite young, both only a few weeks old, and that's the greatest sorrow the Countess has had to bear. It would seem from her hints that it was the fault of the loose women for whom her husband betrayed her that the children died directly after birth."
Both remained silent, and their eyes clouded over.
"Add to that," continued Imma Spoelmann, "that he dissipated his wife's dowry, at cards and with the women—a respectable dowry it was too—and after her parents' death her whole fortune also. Relations of hers too helped him once, when he was near having to leave the service on account of his debts. But then came a scandal, an altogether revolting one, in which he was involved and which did for him once and for all."
"What was it?" asked Klaus Heinrich.
​"I can't exactly tell you, Prince. But, according to what the Countess has let slip about it, it was a scandal of the very grossest description—we agreed just now that there are generally no limits in that direction."
"And then he went to America?"
"You're right there, Prince. I can't help admiring your 'cuteness."
"Please go on, Miss Spoelmann. I've never heard anything like the Countess's story."
"No more had I; so you can imagine what an impression it made on me when she came to us. Well, then, Count Löwenjoul bolted to America with the police at his heels, leaving pretty considerable debts behind of course. And the Countess went with him."
"She went with him? Why?"
"Because she still loved him, in spite of everything—she loves him still—and because she was determined to share his life whatever happened. He took her with him, though, because he had a better chance of getting help from her relations as long as she was with him. The relations sent him one further instalment of money from home, and then stopped—they finally buttoned up their pockets; and when Count Löwenjoul saw that his wife was no more use to him, he just left her—left her in absolute destitution and cleared out."
"I knew it," said Klaus Heinrich, "I expected as much. Just what does happen."
But Imma Spoelmann went on: "So there she was, destitute and helpless, and, since she had never learned to earn her own living, she was left alone to face want and hunger. And you must remember that fife in the States is much harder and meaner than here in your country; also that the Countess has always been a gentle, sensitive creature, and has been cruelly treated for years. In a word, she was no fit subject for the impressions of life to which ​she was unceasingly exposed. And then the blessing fell to her."
"What blessing? She told me about that too. What was the blessing, Miss Spoelmann?"
"The blessing consisted in a mental disturbance. At the crisis of her troubles something in her cracked—that's the expression she used to me—so that she no longer needed to face life and to bring a clear, sober mind to bear upon it, but was permitted, so to speak, to let herself go, to relax the tension of her nerves and to drivel when she liked. In a word, the blessing was that she went wrong in her head."
"Certainly I was under the impression," said Klaus Heinrich, "that the Countess was letting herself go when she drivelled."
"That's how it is, Prince. She is quite conscious of drivelling, and often laughs as she does so, or lets her hearers understand that she doesn't mean any harm by it. Her strangeness is a beneficent disorder, which she can control to a certain extent, and which she allows herself to indulge in. It is, if you prefer it, a want of——"
"Of self-restraint," said Klaus Heinrich, and looked down at his reins.
"Right, of self-restraint," she repeated, and looked at him. "You don't seem to approve of that want, Prince."
"I consider as a general rule," he answered quietly, "that it is not right to let oneself go and to make oneself at home, but that self-restraint should always be exercised, whatever the circumstances."
"Your Highness's doctrine," she answered, "is a praise worthy austerity." Then she pouted, and, wagging her dark head in its three-cornered hat, she added in her broken voice: "I'll tell you something, Highness, and please note it well. If your Eminence is not inclined to show a little sympathy and indulgence and mildness, I shall have to ​decline the pleasure of your distinguished company once and for all."
He dropped his head, and they rode a while in silence. "Won't you go on to tell me how the Countess came to you?" he asked at last.
"No, I won't," she said, and looked straight in front of her. But he pressed her so pleadingly that she finished her story and said: "And although fifty other companions applied, my choice—for the choice rested with me—fell at once on her, I was so much taken with her at my first interview. She was odd, I could see that: but she was odd only from too rich an experience of misery and wickedness, that was clear in every word she said; and as for me, I had always been a little lonely and cut off, and absolutely without experience, Except what I got at my University lectures."
"Of course, you had always been a little lonely and cut off!" repeated Klaus Heinrich, with a ring of joy in his voice.
"That's what I said. It was a dull, simple life in some ways that I led, and still lead, because it has not altered much, and is all much the same. There were parties with 'lions' and balls, and often a dash in a closed motor to the Opera House, where I sat in one of the little boxes above the stalls, so as to be well observed by everybody, for show, as we say. That was a necessary part of my position."
"For show?"
"Yes, for show; I mean the duty of showing oneself off, of not raising walls against the public, but letting them come into the garden and walk on the lawn and gaze at the terrace, watching us at tea. My father, Mr. Spoelmann, disliked it intensely. But it was a necessary consequence of our position."
"What did you usually do besides, Miss Spoelmann?"
"In the spring we went to our house in the Adirondacks and in the summer to our house at Newport-on-Sea. There ​were garden-parties of course, and battles of flowers and lawn-tennis tournaments, and we went for rides and drove four-in-hand or motored, and the people stood and gaped, because I was Samuel Spoelmann's daughter. And many shouted rude remarks after me."
"Rude remarks?"
"Yes, and they probably had reason to. At any rate it was something of a life in the limelight that we led, and one that invited discussion."
"And between whiles," he said, "you played in the breezes, didn't you, or rather in a vacuum, where no dust came——"
"That's right. Your Highness is pleased to mock my excess of candour. But in view of all this you can guess how extraordinarily welcome the Countess was to me, when she came to see me in Fifth Avenue. She does not express herself very clearly, but rather in a mysterious sort of way, and the boundary line at which she begins to drivel is not always quite clearly apparent. But that only strikes me as right and instructive, as it gives a good idea of the boundlessness of misery and wickedness in the world. You envy me the Countess, don't you?"
"Envy? H'm. You seem to assume, Miss Spoelmann, that I have never had my eyes opened."
"Have you?"
"Once or twice, maybe. For instance, things have come to my ears about our lackeys, which you would scarcely dream of."
"Are your lackeys so bad?"
"Bad? Good-for-nothing, that's what they are. For one thing they play into each other's hands, and scheme, and take bribes from the tradesmen——"
"But, Prince, that's comparatively harmless."
"Yes, true, it's nothing to compare with the way the Countess has had her eyes opened."
​They broke into a trot, and, leaving at the sign-post the gently rising and falling high-road, which they had followed through the pine-woods, turned into the sandy short cut, between high blackberry-covered banks, which led into the tufted meadow-land round the "Pheasantry." Klaus Heinrich was at home in these parts: he stretched out his arm (the right one) to point out everything to his companions, though there was not much worth seeing. Yonder lay the Schloss, closed and silent, with its shingle-roof and its lightning-conductors on the edge of the wood. On one side was the pheasants' enclosure, which gave the place its name, and on the other Stavenüter's tea-garden, where he had sometimes sat with Raoul Ueberbein. The spring sun shone mildly over the damp meadow-land and shed a soft haze over the distant woods.
They reined in their horses in front of the tea-garden, and Imma Spoelmann took stock of the prosaic country-house which rejoiced in the name of the "Pheasantry."
"Your childhood," she said with a pout, "does not seem to have been surrounded by much giddy splendour."
"No," he laughed, "there's nothing to see in the Schloss. It's the same inside as out. No comparison with Delphinenort, even before you restored it——"
"Let's put our horses up," she said. "One must put one's horses up on an expedition, mustn't one, Countess? Dismount, Prince. I'm thirsty, and want to see what your friend Stavenüter has got to drink."
There stood Herr Stavenüter in green apron and stockings, bowing and pressing his knitted cap to his chest with both hands, while he laughed till his gums showed.
"Royal Highness!" he said, with joy in his voice, "does your Royal Highness mean to honour me once again? And the young lady!" he added, with a tinge of deference in his voice; for he knew Samuel Spoelmann's daughter quite well, and there had been in the whole ​Grand Duchy no more eager reader of the newspaper articles which coupled Prince Klaus Heinrich's and Imma's names together. He helped the Countess to dismount, while Klaus Heinrich, who was the first to the ground, devoted himself to Miss Spoelmann, and he called to a lad, who, with the Spoelmanns' groom, took charge of the horses. Then followed the reception and welcome to which Klaus Heinrich was accustomed. He addressed a few formal questions in a reserved tone of voice to Herr Stavenüter, graciously asked how he was and how his business prospered, and received the answers with nods and a show of real interest. Imma Spoelmann watched his artificial, cold demeanour with seriovfe, searching eyes, while she swung her riding-whip backwards and forwards.
"May I be so bold as to remind you that I am thirsty?" she said at last sharply and decisively, whereupon they walked into the garden and discussed whether they need go in to the coffee-room. Klaus Heinrich urged that it was still so damp under the trees; but Imma insisted on sitting outside, and herself chose one of the long narrow tables with benches on each side, which Herr Stavenüter hastened to cover with a white cloth.
"Lemonade!" he said. "That's best for a thirst, and it's sound stuff! no trash, Royal Highness, and you, ladies, but natural juice sweetened—there's no better!"
Followed the driving-in of the glass balls in the necks of the bottles; and, while his distinguished guests tasted the drink, Herr Staveniiter dawdled a little longer at the table, meaning to serve them up a little gossip. He had long been a widower, and his three children, who in days gone by had sung here under the trees the song about common humanity, the while blowing their noses with their fingers, had now left him. The son was a soldier in the capital, one of the daughters had married a neighbouring ​farmer, the other, with a soul for higher things, had gone into service in the capital.
So Herr Staveniiter was in solitary control in this remote spot, in the three-fold capacity of farmer of the Schloss lands, caretaker of the Schloss, and head keeper of the "Pheasantry," and was well content with his lot. Soon, if the weather permitted, the season for bicyclists and walkers would come round, when the garden was filled on Sundays. Then business hummed. Would not his Highness and the ladies like to take a peep at the "Pheasantry"?
Yes, they would, later; so Herr Staveniiter withdrew for the present, after placing a saucer of milk for Percival by the table.
The collie had been in some muddy water on the way, and looked horrible. His legs were thin with wet, and the white parts of his ragged coat covered with dirt. His gaping mouth was black to the throat from nuzzling for field-mice, and his dark red tongue hung dripping out of his mouth. He quickly lapped up his milk, and then lay with panting sides by his mistress's feet, flat on his side, his head thrown back in an attitude of repose.
Klaus Heinrich declared it to be inexcusable for Imma to expose herself after her ride to the invidious springtime air without any wrap. "Take' my cloak," he said. "I really do not want it, I'm quite warm, and my coat is padded on the chest!" She would not hear of it; but he went on asking her so insistently that she consented, and let him lay his grey military coat with a major's shoulder-straps round her shoulders. Then, resting her dark head in its three-cornered hat in the hollow of her hand, she watched him as, with arm outstretched towards the Schloss, he described to her the life he had once led there.
There, where the tall window opened on to the ground, had been the mess-room, then the school-room, and up above Klaus Heinrich's room with the plaster torso on the ​stove. He told her too about Professor Kürtchen and his tactful way of instructing his pupils, about Captain Amelung's widow, and the aristocratic "Pheasants," who called everything "hogwash," and especially about Raoul Ueberbein, his friend, of whom Imma Spoelmann more than once asked him to tell her some more.
He told her about the doctor's obscure origin, and about the money his parents paid to be quit of him; about the child in the marsh or bog, and the medal for saving life; about Ueberbein's plucky and ambitious career, pursued in circumstances calling for resolution and action, which he used to call favourable circumstances, and about his friendship with Doctor Sammet, whom Imma knew. He described his by no means attractive appearance and readily owned to the attraction which he had exercised on him from the very beginning. He described his behaviour towards himself, Klaus Heinrich—that fatherly and jolly, blustering camaraderie which had distinguished him so sharply from everybody else—and gave Imma to the best of his ability an insight into his tutor's views of life. Finally he expressed his concern that the doctor seemed not to enjoy any sort of popularity among his fellow-citizens.
"I can quite believe that," said Imma.
He was surprised, and asked why.
"Because I'm convinced," she said, wagging her head, "that your Ueberbein, for all his sparkling conversation, is an unhappy sort of creature. He may swagger about the place; but he lacks reserve, Prince, and that means that he will come to a bad end."
Her words startled Klaus Heinrich, and made him thoughtful. Then turning to the Countess, who awoke with a smile out of a brown study, he said something complimentary about her riding, for which she thanked him gracefully. He said that anybody could see that she had learnt to ride as a child, and she confessed that riding ​lessons had formed a considerable part of her education. She spoke clearly and cheerfully; but gradually, almost imperceptibly, she began to wander into a strange story about a gallant ride which she had made as a lieutenant in the last manoeuvres, and suddenly started talking about the dreadful wife of a sergeant in the Grenadiers, who had come into her room the previous night and scratched her breasts all over, meanwhile using language which she could not bring herself to repeat. Klaus Heinrich asked quietly whether she had not shut her door and windows.
"Of course, but anyone could break the glass!" she answered hastily, and turned pale in one cheek and red in the other. Klaus Heinrich nodded acquiescence, and, dropping his eyes, asked her quietly to let him call her "Frau Meier" now and then, a proposal which she gladly accepted, with a confidential smile and a far-away look which had something strangely attractive about it.
They got up to visit the "Pheasantry," after Klaus Heinrich had taken back his cloak; and as they left the garden, Imma Spoelmann said: "Well done, Prince. You're getting on," a commendation which made him blush, indeed gave him far more pleasure than the most fulsome newspaper report of the valuable effect of his appearance at a ceremony which Councillor Schustermann could ever show him.
Herr Stavenüter escorted his guests into the palisaded enclosure in which six or seven families of pheasants led a comfortable, petted life. They watched the greedy, red-eyed, and stiff-tailed birds, inspected the hatching house, and looked on while Herr Stavenüter fed the pheasants under a big solitary fig-tree for their benefit. Klaus Heinrich thanked him warmly for all that he had shown them, Imma Spoelmann regarding him the while with her big, searching eyes. Then they mounted at the gate of the tea-garden and rode off homewards with Percival barking and pirouetting under the horses' noses.
​But their ride home was destined to give Klaus Heinrich, in the course of his conversation with Imma Spoelmann, yet another significant indication of her real nature and character, a direct revelation of certain sides of her personality which gave him food for much thought.
For soon after they had left the bramble-hedged by-way and joined the high-road, Klaus Heinrich reverted to a subject which had been just touched on at his first visit to Delphinenort during the conversation at tea, and had not ceased to exercise him ever since.
"May I," he said, "ask you one question, Miss Spoelmann? You need not answer it if you don't want to."
"I'll see about that," she answered.
"Four weeks ago," he began, "when I first had the pleasure of a talk with your father, Mr. Spoelmann, I asked him a question which he answered so curtly and abruptly that I could not help feeling that my question had been indiscreet or a false step."
"What was it?"
"I asked him whether he had not found it hard to leave America."
"There you are, Prince, there's another question which is worthy of you, a typical Prince-question. If you had had a little more training in the use of your reasoning powers you would have known without asking that if my father had not been ready and glad to leave America, he most assuredly would not have left it."
"Very probably you are right; forgive me, I don't think enough. But if my question was nothing worse than a want of thought, I shall be quite content. Can you assure me that that is the case?"
"No, Prince, I'm afraid I cannot," she said, and looked at him suddenly with her big black eyes.
"Then what has want of thought to do with it? Do please explain. I ask you in the name of our friendship."
​"Are we friends?"
"I hoped so," he said pleadingly.
"Well, well, patience! I didn't know it, but I'm quite ready to learn it. But to return to my father, he really did lose his temper at your question—he has a quick temper, and has plenty of occasion to practise losing it. The fact is that public opinion and sentiment were not over-friendly to us in America. There's such a lot of scheming over there—I may mention that I am not posted in the details, but there was a strong political movement towards setting the crowd, the common people, you know, against us. The result was legislation and restrictions which made my father's life over there a burden to him. You know of course, Prince, that it was not he who made us what we are, but my redoubtable grandfather with his Paradise nugget and Blockhead Farm. My father could not help it he was born to his destiny, and it was no gratification to him, because he is naturally shy and sensitive, and would much have preferred to have lived for playing the organ and collecting glass. I really believe that the hatred which was the result of the scheming against us, so that sometimes the people hurled abuse after me when I motored past them—that the hatred quite probably brought on his stone in the kidneys; it's more than possible."
"I am cordially attached to your father," said Klaus Heinrich with emphasis.
"I should have made that, Prince, a condition of our becoming friends. But there was another point which made things worse, and made our position over there still more difficult, and that was our origin."
"Your origin?"
"Yes, Prince; we are no aristocratic pheasants, unfortunately we are not descended from Washington or from the Pilgrim Fathers."
"No, for you are German."
​"Oh yes, but there's something besides to get over. Please look at me closely. Does it strike you that there is anything to be proud of in having blue-black wispy hair like mine, that's always falling where it's not wanted?"
"Goodness knows, Miss Spoelmann, you've got glorious hair!" said Klaus Heinrich. "I know that you are partly of Southern extraction, for I've read somewhere that your grandfather married in Bolivia or thereabouts."
"He did. But that's where the trouble lies, Prince. I'm a quintroon."
"A what?"
"A quintroon."
"That goes with the Adirondacks and the refraction, Miss Spoelmann. I don't know what it is. I've already told you that I don't know much."
"Well, it's a fact. My grandfather, thoughtless as he always was, married a woman of Indian blood down South."
"Indian blood!"
"Yes. She was of Indian stock at the third remove, daughter of a white and a half-Indian, and so a terceroon as it is called. She must have been wonderfully beautiful. And she was my grandmother. The grandchildren of a terceroon are called quintroons. That's how things are."
"Most interesting. But didn't you say that it had affected people's attitude towards you?"
"You don't understand, Prince. I must tell you that Indian blood over there means a heavy blot—such a blot, that friendships and affections are transformed into hatred and abuse if proof of half-blood descent comes to light. Of course things are not so serious with us, for with quad-roons—why, of course, the taint is nothing like so great, and a quintroon is to all intents and purposes untainted. But in our case, exposed to gossip as we were, it was naturally different, and several times when the people shouted abuse after us I heard them say that I was a coloured girl. In ​short, my descent was made an excuse for insults and annoyances, and raised a barrier between us and the few who were in the same position of life as ourselves—there was always something which we had to hide or to brazen out. My grandfather had brazened it out, he was that sort of man, and knew what he was doing; besides, his blood was pure, it was only his beautiful wife who had the taint. But my father was her son, and, sensitive and quick tempered as he is, he has always, ever since he was a boy, resented being stared at, and hated and despised at the same time; half a world's wonder and half a monument of iniquity, as he used to say. He was fed up with America. That's the whole history, Prince," said Imma Spoelmann, "and now you know why my father lost his temper over your pointed question."
Klaus Heinrich thanked her for the explanation; indeed, as he saluted and took leave (it was lunch time) of the ladies in front of the Delphinenort Gate, he repeated his thanks for what he had been told, and then rode at foot's pace home, pondering over the events of the morning.
He saw Imma Spoelmann sitting in a languid pose in her red-gold dress at the table, with a look as of a spoilt child on her face; sitting in comfortable assurance, and uttering remarks with a sting in them, such as were good coin in the United States, where clearness, hardness, and a ready wit were essentials of life. And why? Klaus Heinrich could understand now, and never a day passed that he did not try to realize it better. Stared at, hated and despised at the same time, half a world's wonder and half a monument of iniquity, that's what her life had been, and that had instilled the poison into her remarks, that acidity and mocking directness, which looked like offence but really were defence, and which evoked a look of bewilderment on the faces of those who had never had any occasion for the weapons of wit.
​She had demanded of him sympathy and tenderness towards the poor Countess, when she let herself go; but she herself had a claim to sympathy and tenderness, for she was lonely and her life, like his, was a hard one. At the same time a memory haunted him, a long-ago, painful memory, whose scene was the refreshment room of the "Citizen Garden," and which ended in a tureen lid——"Little sister!" he said to himself, as he quickly dismissed the scene from his thoughts. "Little sister!" But most of all his thoughts were busy with planning how soonest to enjoy Miss Spoelmann's society again.
He enjoyed it soon and often, in all sorts of circumstances. February gave place to threatening March, fickle April and soft May. And all these months Klaus, Heinrich visited Schloss Delphinenort at least once a week, in the morning or in the afternoon, and always in the irresponsible mood in which he had presented himself at the Spoelmanns' that February morning, as if led by fate without any action of his own will. The proximity of the Schlosses made the visits easy, the short distance through the park from the "Hermitage" to Delphinenort was easily crossed on horseback or in a dogcart, without exciting much attention; and when the advancing season brought more people to the neighbourhood and made it harder and harder for them to go for rides without attracting public attention, the Prince had by this time reached a state of mind which can only be described as complete indifference and blind recklessness towards the world, the Court, the capital, and the countryside. It was not till later that the public interest began to play a really important—and encouraging—part in his thoughts and actions.
He had not taken leave of the ladies after the first ride without suggesting another expedition, a suggestion to which Imma Spoelmann, pouting and wagging her head from side to side, had failed to bring any serious objection. ​So he came again; and they rode to the Royal Kennels, on the north side of the Town Gardens; on the third occasion they chose a third place to ride to, which also they could reach without going near the town. Then, when spring enticed the townspeople into the open air and the tea-gardens filled up, they preferred an out-of-the-way path, which really was no path, but a richly wooded dyke, which stretched far away to the north along a swift-running stream.
The quietest way of reaching it was by riding out at the back of the "Hermitage" park, and past the river meadows on the edge of the northern Town Garden up to the Royal Kennels; then not crossing the river by the wooden bridge at the weir, but keeping along this side. The Kennels Farm was left behind on the right, and the ride went on through the fir-plantations. On the left lay spreading meadows, white and gaily coloured with hemlock and anemones, buttercups and bluebells, clover, daisies, and forget-me-nots; a village church tower rose in front of them beyond the plough-lands, and the busy high-road lay far away at a safe distance from the riders. Farther on, the meadows with their nut-hedges came close up to the plantations on the left, shutting out the view, and enabling them to ride in complete seclusion, generally side by side with the Countess behind, as the path was narrow. They talked or rode in silence, while Percival jumped over the stream and back again, or plunged into it for a bath or a hurried drink. They came back the same way as they went.
When, however, the quicksilver fell owing to the lowness of the atmospheric pressure, when rain followed, and Klaus Heinrich nevertheless felt another peep at Imma Spoelmann to be a necessity, he presented himself in his dogcart at Delphinenort at tea time, and they stayed indoors. Mr. Spoelmann joined them at tea not more than two or three times. His malady got worse about this time, and on ​several days he was obliged to stay in bed with hot poultices. When he did come, he used to say: "Hullo, young Prince," with his thin, white-cuffed hand dip a rusk in his tea, throw in a cross word here and there into the conversation, and end by offering his guest his gold cigarette-case, whereupon he left the garden room with Dr. Watercloose, who had sat silent and smiling at the table. In fine weather too they sometimes preferred not to go outside the park, but to play lawn-tennis on the trim lawn below the terrace. On one occasion they went for a rapid drive in Mr. Spoelmann's motor far out beyond the "Pheasantry."
One day Klaus Heinrich asked: "Is what I have read true, Miss Spoelmann, that your father gets such a tremendous lot of letters and appeals every day?"
Then she described to him the subscription lists which kept pouring in to Delphinenort, and which were dealt with as thoroughly as was practicable; of the piles of begging letters by every post from Europe and America which Messrs. Phlebs and Slippers ran through and weeded out for submission to Mr. Spoelmann. Sometimes, she said, she amused herself by glancing through the heaps, and reading the addresses; for these were often quite fantastic. For the needy or speculative senders tried to outdo each other in the deference and servility of their address on the envelopes, and every conceivable title and distinction could be found mixed up in the strangest way on the letters. But one begging-letter writer had quite recently carried off the prize by addressing his envelope to: "His Royal Highness Mr. Samuel Spoelmann." But it did not get him any more than the others.
On other occasions the Prince fell to talking mysteriously about the "Owl Chamber" in the Old Schloss, and confided to her that recently noises had again been heard in it, pointing to events of moment in his, Klaus Heinrich's, family. Then Imma Spoelmann laughed, and, pouting ​and wagging her head from side to side, gave him a scientific explanation of the noises, just as she had done in connexion with the secrets of the barometer. Nonsense, she said; it must be that that part of the lumber-room was ellipsoidal, and a second ellipsoidal surface with the same curvature and with a sound-source at the focus existed somewhere outside, the result being that inside the haunted room noises were audible which could not be distinguished in the immediate neighbourhood. Klaus Heinrich was rather crestfallen over this explanation, and loath to give up the common belief in the connexion between the lumber-room and the fortunes of his house.
Thus they conversed, and the Countess too took part, now sensible, now confused; Klaus Heinrich took considerable pains not to rebuff or chill her by his manner, and addressed her as "Frau Meier" whenever she appeared to think it necessary for her protection against the plots of the wicked women. He recounted to the ladies his unreal life, the gala suppers at the students' clubs, the military banquets, and his educational tour; he told them about his relations, about his once-beautiful mother, whom he visited now and then in the "Segenhaus," where she kept dismal court, and about Albrecht and Ditlinde. Imma Spoelmann in her turn related some incidents in her luxurious and singular youth, and the Countess often slipped in a few dark sayings about the horrors and secrets of life, to which the others listened with serious and thoughtful faces.
They took special delight in one kind of game—guessing existences, making estimates to the best of their knowledge of the people they happened to see in the citizen world—a strange and curious study of the passers-by from a distant standpoint, from the terrace or from horse-back. What kind of young people might these be? What did they do? Where did they come from? They were certainly not ​apprentices, perhaps technical students or budding foresters, to judge by certain signs; maybe they belonged to the agricultural college; at any rate stout fellows enough, though rather rough, with sound careers before them. But that little untidy thing who strolled past looked like a factory hand or dressmaker's assistant. Girls like her' always had a young man in their own class, who took them out to tea in the parks on Sundays. And they exchanged what they knew about people in general, discussed them like connoisseurs, and felt that this pastime brought them closer together than any amount of riding or lawn-tennis.
As for the motor drive, Imma Spoelmann in the course of it explained that she had only invited Klaus Heinrich to it so as to let him see the chauffeur, a young American in brown leather, who, she declared, resembled the Prince. Klaus Heinrich objected with a smile that the back of the driver's neck did not enable him to express an opinion on the matter, and asked the Countess to say what she thought. She, after long denying the likeness in polite embarrassment, at last, on Imma's insistence, with a side glance at Klaus Heinrich, agreed to it.
Then Miss Spoelmann said that the grave, sober, and skilful youth had originally been in her father's personal service, driving him daily from Fifth Avenue to Broadway and back. Mr. Spoelmann, however, had insisted on extraordinary speed, like that of an express train, and the intense strain put upon a driver by such speed in the crowded streets of New York had proved at last too much for the youth. As a matter of fact no accident had happened; the young man had stuck to it and done his deadly duty with amazing care. But in the end it had often happened that he had had to be lifted down in a faint from his seat at the end of a run—a proof of the inordinate strain to which he had been daily subjected. To avoid having to dismiss him, Mr. Spoelmann had made him his daughter's ​special chauffeur, and he had continued to act in that capacity in their new abode.
Imma had noticed the likeness between Klaus Heinrich and him the first time she saw the Prince. It was of course a similarity not of features, but of expression. The Countess had agreed with her. Klaus Heinrich said that he did not in the least object to the likeness, as the heroic young man had all his sympathy. They then discussed further the difficult and anxious life of a chauffeur, without Countess Löwenjoul taking any further part in the conversation. She did not prattle during this drive, though later she made a few sensible and pointed remarks.
For the rest, Mr. Spoelmann's craze for speed seemed to have descended in some measure to his daughter, for she never lost an opportunity of repeating the wild gallop she had started on their first ride; and as Klaus Heinrich, stimulated by her gibes, urged the amazed and disapproving Florian to the top of his speed, so as not to be left behind, the gallop always degenerated into a race, which Imma Spoelmann always started at unexpected and arbitrary moments. Several of these struggles took place on the lonely river-edged causeway, and one in particular was long and bitter. It happened after a short talk about Klaus Heinrich's popularity, which was begun brusquely, and broken off as brusquely, by Imma Spoelmann. She asked suddenly: "Is it true what I hear, Prince, that you are so tremendously popular with the people? That you have won all their hearts?"
He answered: "So they say. It must be some characteristics, not necessarily good ones. What's more, I'm not sure whether I believe it, or even ought to be glad of it. I doubt whether it speaks for me. My brother, the Grand Duke, declares in so many words that popularity is hog-wash."
"H'm, the Grand Duke must be a fine man: I've got a ​great respect for him. So we see you in an atmosphere of adulation, and everybody loves you … go on!" she cried suddenly, and gave Fatma a cut with her white switch. The mare started, and the race began.
It lasted a long time. Never before had they followed the stream so far. The view on the left had long become shut in. Lumps of earth and grass flew from under the horses' hoofs. The Countess had soon dropped behind. When at last they reined in their horses, Florian was trembling with exhaustion, and the riders themselves were pale and panting. They rode back in silence.
Klaus Heinrich received a visit at the "Hermitage" from Raoul Ueberbein the afternoon before his birthday this year. The Doctor came to wish him many happy returns, as he expected to be prevented by his work from doing so on the morrow. They strolled round the gravel path at the back of the park, the tutor in his frock-coat and white tie, Klaus Heinrich in his summer coat. The grass stood ready for cutting under the perpendicular rays of the midday sun, and the limes were in flower. In one corner, close by the hedge which divided the park from the unlovely suburbs, stood a little rustic temple.
Klaus Heinrich was telling of his visits to "Delphinenort," as this topic lay nearest his heart. He spoke quite clearly about them, but did not tell the doctor any actual news, for the latter showed that he knew all about them. How was that? Oh, from various sources. Ueberbein had never started the subject. So people in the town concern themselves about it?
"Heaven forbid, Klaus Heinrich, that anybody should give a thought to it, either to the rides, or to the teas, or to the motor drive. You don't suppose that that sort of thing is expected to set tongues wagging!"
"But we're so careful!"
"'We' is rich, Klaus Heinrich, and so is the carefulness. ​All the same, his Excellency von Knobelsdorff keeps him self accurately posted in all your goings-on."
"Knobelsdorff?"
"Knobelsdorff."
Klaus Heinrich was silent; then asked: "And what is Baron Knobelsdorff's attitude towards what he learns?"
"Well, the old gentleman hasn't yet had a chance of interfering in the developments."
"But public opinion?—the people?"
"The people of course hold their breath."
"And you, you yourself, my dear Doctor Ueberbein?"
"I'm waiting for the tureen-lid," answered the doctor.
"No!" cried Klaus Heinrich joyfully. "No, there'll be no tureen-lid this time, Doctor Ueberbein, for I am happy, oh so happy, whatever happens—can you understand? You taught me that happiness was no concern of mine, and you pulled me up short when I tried to come by it; and right thankful I was to you for doing so, for it was horrible, and I shall never forget it. But this is no case of high jinks at a citizens' dance, which leave one humiliated and heavy at heart; this is no breaking out and running off the rails and humiliation! For can't you see that she of whom we are speaking belongs neither to the citizens' dance, nor to the aristocratic 'Pheasants,' nor to anything in the world but to me—that she is a Princess, Doctor Ueberbein, and as good as me, and there can be no question here of a tureen-lid? You have taught me that it is silly to maintain that we're all only ordinary men, and hopeless for me to act as if we were, and that the happiness I would gain by doing so is forbidden to me and must bring me to shame in the end. But this is not that silly and forbidden happiness. It is my first taste of the happiness which is allowed me, and which I may hope for, Doctor Ueberbein, and yield myself to without misgiving, whatever comes of it.…"
​"Good-bye, Prince Klaus Heinrich," said Doctor Ueberbein, though he did not at once leave him, but continued walking at his side with his hands clasped behind him and his red beard sunk on his breast.
"No," said Klaus Heinrich. "No, not good-bye, Doctor Ueberbein. That's just it. I mean to remain your friend, you who have had such a. hard time, and have shown such pride in your duty and destiny, and have made me proud too in treating me as a companion. I have no in tention of resting on my oars, now that I have found happiness, but will remain true to you and to myself and to my exalted calling.…"
"It cannot be," said Doctor Ueberbein in Latin, and shook his ugly head with its protruding, pointed ears.
"It can be, Doctor. I'm sure it can, they're not in compatible. And you, you ought not to show yourself so cold and distant at my side, when I am so happy, and, what's more, it's the eve of my birthday. Tell me—you've had so many experiences and seen so much of the world in all its aspects—have you never had any experiences in this direction? You know what I mean—have you never had an attack like this of mine?"
"H'm," said Doctor Ueberbein, and pressed his lips together, till his red beard rose, and the muscles knotted in his cheeks. "No doubt I may have had one once, sub rosa."
"I thought so! Tell me about it, Doctor Ueberbein. You must tell me about it!"
The hour was one of quiet sunshine, and the air full of the scent of limes. So Doctor Ueberbein related an incident in his career on which he had never touched in previous accounts, though it had had perhaps a decisive influence on his whole life. It had occurred in those early days when the Doctor was teacher of the young idea and at the same time working on his own account, when he used to draw in his waist-belt and give private lessons to ​sleek tradesmen's children, so as to get money to buy books with. With his hands still behind him and his beard sunk on his breast, the doctor related the incident in a sharp and incisive tone of voice, pressing his lips close together between each sentence.
At that date fate had forged the closest ties between him and a woman, a lovely, fair lady who was the wife of an honourable and respected man and the mother of three children. He had entered the family as tutor to the children, but had subsequently been a constant guest and visitor, and with the husband too had reached a footing of mutual confidences. The feelings of the young tutor and the fair wife for each other had been long unsuspected, and longer still unexpressed in words; but they grew stronger in the silence, and more overpowering, till one evening hour when the husband had stayed late at his office, a warm, sweet, dangerous hour, they burst into flames and were near to overwhelm them.
In that hour their longing had cried aloud for the happiness, the tremendous happiness, of their union; but, said Doctor Ueberbein, the world could sometimes show a noble action. They felt ashamed, he said, to tread the mean and ridiculous path of treachery, and to "clap horns," as the phrase goes, on the honest husband; while to spoil his life by demanding release from him as the right of passion was equally not to their taste. In short, for the children's sake and for that of the good, honest husband, whom they both respected, they denied themselves. Yes, that's what happened, but of course it needed a good deal of stern resolution. Ueberbein continued to visit the fair lady's house occasionally. He would sup there, when he had time, play a game of cards with his two friends, kiss his hostess's hand, and say good night.
But when he had told the Prince this much, he concluded in a still shorter and sharper tone than he had begun, and ​the balls of muscle at the corners of his mouth showed more prominently than before. For the hour which saw their act of renunciation, in that hour Ueberbein had said a final farewell to all happiness—"dalliance with happiness," as he had since called it. As he failed, or refused, to win the fair lady, he swore to himself that he would honour her, and the bonds which bound him to her, by achieving something and making himself felt in the field of hard work. To this he had dedicated his life, to this alone, and it had brought him to what he was. That was the secret, or at least a contribution to the solution of the riddle of Ueberbein's unsociability, unapproachableness, and earnest endeavour. Klaus Heinrich was quite frightened to see how unusually green his face was when he took his leave with a deep bow, saying: "My greetings to little Imma, Klaus Heinrich."
Next day the Prince received the congratulations of the staff at the Schloss, and later those of Herr von Braunbart-Schellendorf and von Schulenburg-Tressen in the Yellow Room. In the course of the morning the members of the Grand Ducal House came to the "Hermitage" to pay their respects, and at one o'clock Klaus Heinrich drove to luncheon with Prince and Princess zu Ried-Hohenried, meeting with an unusually warm reception from the public on the way. The Grimmburgers were mustered in full force in the pretty palace in the Albrechtstrasse. The Grand Duke too came, in a frock-coat, nodded his small head to each member of the party, sucking his lower lip against his upper the while, and drank milk-and-soda during lunch. Almost immediately after lunch was finished he withdrew. Prince Lambert had come without his wife. The old habitué of the ballet was painted, hollow-cheeked, and slovenly, and his voice sounded sepulchral. He was to some extent ignored by his relations.
During luncheon the conversation turned for a while on ​Court matters, then on little Princess Philippine's progress, and later almost exclusively on Prince Philipp's commercial schemes. The quiet little man talked about his breweries, factories, and mills, and in particular about his peat-cuttings. He described various improvements in the machinery, quoted figures of capital invested and returns, and his cheeks glowed, while his wife's relations listened to him with looks of curiosity, approval, or mockery.
When coffee had been served in the big flower-room, the Princess, holding her gilded cup, went up to her brother and said: "You have quite deserted us lately, Klaus Heinrich."
Ditlinde's face with the Grimmburg cheekbones was not so transparent as it had once been. It had gained more colour since the birth of her daughter, and her head seemed to be less oppressed by the weight of her fair hair.
"Have I deserted you?" he said. "Forgive me, Ditlinde, perhaps I have. But there were so many calls on my time, and I knew that there were on yours too; for you are no longer confined to flowers."
"True, the flowers have had to take a less prominent place, they don't get much thought from me now. A fairer life and flowering now occupies all my time. I believe that's where I have got my red cheeks from, like dear Philipp from his peat (he ought not to have talked about it the whole of luncheon, as he did; but it's his hobby), and it is because I was so busy and rushed that I was not cross with you for never showing yourself and for going your own way, even though that way seemed to me rather a surprising one."
"Do you know what it is, Ditlinde?"
"Yes, though unfortunately not from you. But Jettchen Isenschnibbe has kept me well posted—you know she is always a fund of news—and at first I was horribly shocked, I don't deny it. But after all they live in Delphinenort, ​he has a private physician, and Philipp thinks they are in their way of equal birth with ourselves. I believe I once spoke disparagingly about them, Klaus Heinrich; I said something about a Crœsus, if I remember rightly, and made a pun on the word 'taxpayer.' But if you consider them worthy of your friendship, I've been wrong and of course withdraw my remarks, and will try to think differently about them in future. I promise you. You always loved rummaging," she went on, after he had laughed and kissed her hand, "and I had to do it with you, and my dress (do you remember it—the red velvet?) suffered for it. Now you have to rummage alone, and God grant, Klaus Heinrich, that it won't bring you any horrible experience."
"I really believe, Ditlinde, that every experience is fine, whether it be good or bad. But my present experience is splendid."
At half-past five the Prince left the "Hermitage" again, in his dogcart, which he drove himself, with a groom at his back. It was warm, and Klaus Heinrich was wearing white trousers with a double-breasted coat. Bowing, he again drove to the town, or more precisely to the Old Schloss. He did not enter the Albrechtstor, however, but drove in through a side door, and across two courtyards till he reached that in which the rosebush grew.
Here all was still and stony; the stair-turrets with their oblique windows, forged-iron balustrades, and fine carvings towered in the corners; the many-styled building stood there in light and shadow, partly grey and weather-worn, partly more modern-looking, with gables and box-like projections, with open porticoes and peeps through broad bow-windows into vaulted halls and narrow galleries. But in the middle, in. its unfenced bed, stood the rosebush, blooming gloriously after a favourable season.
Klaus Heinrich threw the reins to a servant, and went up ​and looked at the dark-red roses. They were exceptionally fine—full and velvety, grandly formed, and a real master-work of nature. Several were already full-blown.
"Call Ezekiel, please," said Klaus Heinrich to a moustachioed door-keeper, who came forward with his hand to his hat.
Ezekiel, the custodian of the rosebush, came. He was a greybeard of seventy years of age, in a gardener's apron, with watery eyes and a bent back.
"Have you any shears by you, Ezekiel?" said Klaus Heinrich, "I should like a rose." And Ezekiel drew some shears out of the pocket of his apron.
"That one there," said Klaus Heinrich, "that's the finest." And the old man cut the thorny branch with trembling hands.
"I'll water it, Royal Highness," he said, and shuffled off to the water-tap in a corner of the court. When he came back, glittering drops were clinging to the petals of the rose, as if to the feathers of waterfowl.
"Thanks, Ezekiel," said Klaus Heinrich, and took the rose. "Still going strong? Here!" He gave the old man a gold piece, and climbing into the dogcart drove with the rose on the seat beside him through the courtyards. Everybody who saw him thought that he was driving back to the "Hermitage" from the Old Schloss, where presumably he had had an interview with the Grand Duke.
But he drove through the Town Gardens to Delphinenort. The sky had clouded over, big drops were already falling on the leaves, and thunder rolled in the distance.
The ladies were at tea when Klaus Heinrich, conducted by the corpulent butler, appeared in the gallery and walked down the steps into the garden room. Mr. Spoelmann, as usual recently, was not present. He was in bed with poultices on. Percival, who lay curled up like a snail close by Imma's chair, beat the carpet with his tail by way ​of greeting. The gilding of the furniture looked dull, as the park beyond the glass door lay in a damp mist.
Klaus Heinrich exchanged a handshake with the daughter of the house, and kissed the Countess's hand, while he gently raised her from the courtly curtsey she had begun, as usual, to make.
"You see, summer has come," he said to Imma Spoelmann, offering her the rose. It was the first time he had brought her flowers.
"How courtly of you!" she said. "Thanks, Prince. And what a beauty!" she went on in honest admiration (a thing she hardly ever showed), and held out her small, ringless hands for the glorious flower, whose dewy petals exquisitely at the edges. "Are there such fine roses here? Where did you get it?" And she bent her dark head eagerly over it.
Her eyes were full of horror when she looked up again.
"It doesn't smell!" she said, and a look of disgust showed round her mouth. "Wait, though—it smells of decay!" she said. "What's this you have brought me, Prince?" And her big black eyes in her pale face seemed to glow with questioning horror.
"Yes," he said, "I'm sorry; that's a way our roses have. It's from the bush in one of the courts of the Old Schloss. Have you never heard of it? There's something hangs by that. People say that one day it will begin to smell exquisite."
She seemed not to be listening to him. "It seems as if it had no soul," she said, and looked at the rose. "But it's perfectly beautiful, that one must allow. Well, that's a doubtful joke on nature's part, Prince. All the same, Prince, thanks for your attention. And as it comes from your ancestral Schloss, one must regard it with due reverence."
She put the rose in a glass by her plate. A swansdown ​flunkey brought the Prince a cup and plate. They discussed at tea the bewitched rose-bush, and then commonplace subjects, such as the Court Theatre, their horses, and all sorts of trivial topics. Imma Spoelmann time after time contradicted him, interposing polished quotations—to her own enjoyment, and his despair at the range of her reading—quotations which she uttered in her broken voice, with whimsical motions of her head. After a time a heavy, white-paper parcel was brought in, sent by the book-binders to Miss Spoelmann, containing a number of works which she had had bound in smart and durable bindings. She opened the parcel, and they all three examined the books to see if the binder had done his work well.
They were nearly all learned works whose contents were either as mysterious-looking as Imma Spoelmann's note-book, or dealt with scientific psychology, acute analyses of internal impulses. They were got up in the most sumptuous way, with parchment and crushed leather, gold letters, fine paper, and silk markers. Imma Spoelmann did not display much enthusiasm over the consignment, but Klaus Heinrich, who had never seen such handsome volumes, was full of admiration.
"Shall you put them all into the bookcase?" he asked. "With the others upstairs? I suppose you have quantities of books? Are they all as fine as these? Do let me see how you arrange them. I can't go yet, the weather's still bad and would ruin my white trousers. Besides, I've no idea how you live in Delphinenort, I've never seen your study. Will you show me your books?"
"That depends on the Countess," she said, busying herself with piling the volumes one on the other. "Countess, the Prince wants to see my books. Would you be so kind as to say what you think?"
Countess Löwenjoul was in a brown study. With her small head bent, she was watching Klaus Heinrich with a ​sharp, almost hostile look, and then let her eyes wander to Imma Spoelmann, when her expression altered and became gentle, sympathetic, and anxious. She came to herself with a smile, and drew a little watch out of her brown, close-fitting dress.
"At seven o'clock," she said brightly," Mr. Spoelmann expects you to read to him, Imma. You have half an hour in which to do what his Royal Highness wants."
"Good; come along, Prince, and inspect my study," said Imma. "And so far as your Highness permits it, please lend a hand in carrying up these books; I'll take half."
But Klaus Heinrich took them all. He clasped them in both arms, though the left was not much use to him, and the pile reached to his chin. Then, bending backwards and going carefully, so as to drop nothing, he followed Imma over into the wing towards the drive, on the main floor of which lay Countess Löwenjoul's and Miss Spoelmann's quarters.
In the big, comfortable room which they entered through a heavy door he laid his burden down on the top of a hexagonal ebony table, which stood in front of a big gold-chintzed sofa. Imma Spoelmann's study was not furnished in the style proper to the Schloss, but in more modern taste, without any show, but with massive, masculine, serviceable luxury. It was panelled with rare woods right up to the top, and adorned with old porcelain, which glittered on the brackets all round under the ceiling. The carpets were Persian, the mantelpiece black marble, on which stood shapely vases and a gilt clock. The chairs were broad and velvet-covered, and the curtains of the same golden stuff as the sofa-cover. A capacious desk stood in front of the bow-window, which allowed a view of the big basin in front of the Schloss. One wall was covered with books, but the main library was in the adjacent room, which was smaller, and carpeted like the big one. A glass door opened into ​it, and its walls were completely covered with bookshelves right up to the ceiling.
"Well, Prince, there's my hermitage," said Imma Spoelmann. "I hope you like it."
"Why, it's glorious," he said. But he did not look round him, but gazed unintermittently at her, as she reclined against the sofa cushions by the hexagonal table. She was wearing one of her beautiful indoor dresses, a summer one this time, made of white accordion-pleated stuff, with open sleeves and gold embroidery on the yoke. The skin of her arms and neck seemed brown as meerschaum against the white of the dress; her big, bright, earnest eyes in the strangely childlike face seemed to speak a language of their own unceasingly, and a smooth wisp of black hair hung across her forehead. She had Klaus Heinrich's rose in her hand.
"How lovely!" he said, standing before her, and not conscious of what he meant. His blue eyes, above the national cheek-bones, were heavy as with grief. "You have as many books," he added, "as my sister Ditlinde has flowers."
"Has the Princess so many flowers?"
"Yes, but of late she has not set so much store by them."
"Let's clear these away," she said and took up some books.
"No, wait," he said anxiously. "I've such a lot to say to you, and our time is so short. You must know that to-day is my birthday—that's why I came and brought you the rose."
"Oh," she said, "that is an event. Your birthday to-day? Well, I'm sure that you received all your congratulations with the dignity you always show. You may have mine as well! It was sweet of you to bring me the rose, although it has its doubtful side." And she tried the mouldy smell once more with an expression of fear on her face. "How old are you to-day, Prince?"
​"Twenty-seven," he answered. "I was born twenty-seven years ago in the Grimmburg. Ever since then I've had a strenuous and lonely time of it."
She did not answer. And suddenly he saw her eyes, under her slightly frowning eye-brows, move to his side. Yes, although he was standing sideways to her with his right shoulder towards her, as he had trained himself to do, he could not prevent her eyes fastening on his left arm, on the hand which he had planted right back on his hip.
"Were you born with that?" she asked softly.
He grew pale. But with a cry, which rang like a cry of redemption, he sank down before her, and clasped her wondrous form in both his arms. There he lay, in his white trousers and his blue and red coat with the major's shoulder-straps.
"Little sister," he said, "little sister——"
She answered with a pout: "Think of appearances, Prince. I consider that one should not let oneself go, but should keep up appearances on all occasions."
But he was too far gone, and raising his face to her, his eyes in a mist, he only said, "Imma—little Imma——"
Then she took his hand, the left, atrophied one, the deformity, the hindrance in his lofty calling, which he had been wont from boyhood to hide artfully and carefully—she took it and kissed it.