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 meadow-land, 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 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 distant

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 himself 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 quiet 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 roué. 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 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 life 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 praiseworthy 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 serious, 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 Stavenüter

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 Stavenüter 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 Stavenüter 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

"hog-wash," 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

quadroons--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 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

horseback. 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

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 himself 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 the 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 intention 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 incompatible. 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 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 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 cheek-bones 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

Croesus, 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 rose-bush

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 rose-bush, 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 masterwork 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 rose-bush, 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 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

curled 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 swan's-down 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 notebook, 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.

VIII

THE FULFILMENT

Grave reports were flying around concerning the state of health of the

Finance Minister, Doctor Krippenreuther. People hinted at nervous

break-down, at a progressive stomach-trouble, which indeed Herr

Krippenreuther's flabby yellow complexion was calculated to suggest....

What is Greatness? The daily-breader, the journeyman, might envy this

tortured dignitary his title, his chain, his rank at Court, his

important office, to which he had climbed so pertinaciously, only to

wear himself out in it: but not when these all meant the concomitant of

his illness. His retirement was repeatedly announced to be impending. It

was said to be due simply and solely to the Grand Duke's dislike of new

faces, as well as to the consideration that matters could not be

improved by a change of personnel, that his resignation had not already

become a fact. Dr. Krippenreuther had spent his summer leave in a

health-resort in the hills. Perhaps he might have improved somewhat up

there. But anyhow after his return his recouped strength ebbed away

quickly again. For at the very beginning of the Parliamentary session a

rift had come between him and the Budget Commission--serious

dissensions, which were certainly not from any want of industry on his

part, but from the circumstances, from the incurable position of

affairs.

In the middle of September Albrecht II opened the Landtag in the Old

Schloss with the traditional ceremonies. They began with an invocation

to God by the Court Chaplain, Dom Wislezenus, in the Schloss Chapel.

Then the Grand Duke, accompanied by Prince Klaus Heinrich, went in

solemn procession to the Throne-room. Here the members of both Chambers,

the Ministers, Court officials, and many others in uniform and civil

dress greeted the royal brothers with three cheers, led by the President

of the First Chamber, a Count Prenzlau.

Albrecht had earnestly wished to transfer to his brother his duties in

the formal ceremony. It was only owing to the urgent objections of Herr

von Knobelsdorff that he walked in the procession behind the pages. He

was so much ashamed of his braided hussar's coat, his gaudy trousers,

and the whole to-do, that he showed clearly in his face his anger and

his embarrassment. His shoulder-blades were twisted in his nervousness

as he mounted the steps to the throne. Then he took his stand in front

of the theatrical chair under the faded baldachin, and sucked at his

upper lip. His small, bearded, unmilitary head rested on the white

collar, which stuck out far above the silver hussar-collar, and his

blue, lonely-looking eyes gazed vacantly in front of him. The jangle of

the spurs of the aide-de-camp who handed him the manuscript of his

Speech from the Throne rang through the hall, in which silence now

reigned. And quietly, with a slight lisp, and more than one sudden burst

of coughing, the Grand Duke read what had been written for him.

The speech was the most palliatory that had ever been heard, each

humiliating fact from outside being counter-balanced by some virtuous

trait or other in the people. He began by praising the industrious

spirit of the whole country; then admitted that there was no actual

increase to show in any branch of manufacture, so that the sources of

revenue failed to show under any head the fertility that could be

desired. He remarked with satisfaction how the feeling for the public

good and economical self-sacrifice were spreading more and more through

the population; and then declared without mincing matters that

"notwithstanding a general most acceptable increase in the taxation

returns as the result of the influx of wealthy foreigners" (meaning Mr.

Spoelmann) "any relaxation of the calls on the said noble self-sacrifice

was not to be thought of."

Even without this, he continued, it had been impossible to budget for

all the objects of the financial policy, and should it prove that

sufficient reduction in the public debt had not been successfully

provided for, the Government considered that the continuation of policy

of moderate loans would prove the best way out of the financial

complications. In any event it--the Government--felt itself supported in

these most unfavourable circumstances by the confidence of the nation,

that faith in the future which was so fair a heritage of our stock....

And the Speech from the Throne left the sinister topic of public economy

as soon as possible, to apply itself to less disputatious subjects, such

as ecclesiastical, educational, and legal matters. Minister of State von

Knobelsdorff declared in the monarch's name the Landtag to be open. And

the cheers which accompanied Albrecht when he left the hall sounded

somewhat ironical and dubious.

As the weather was still summery, he went straight back to Hollerbrunn,

from which necessity alone had driven him to the capital. He had done

his part, and the rest was the concern of Herr Krippenreuther and the

Landtag. Quarrels began, as has been said, immediately, and about

several topics at once: the property tax, the meat tax, and the Civil

Service estimates.

For, when the deputies proved adamant against attempts to persuade them

to sanction fresh taxes, Doctor Krippenreuther's meditative mind had hit

on the idea of converting the income tax which had been usual hitherto

into a property tax, which on the basis of 13½ per cent. would produce

an increment of about a million. How direly needed, indeed how

inadequate such an increment was, was clear from the main budget for the

new financial year, which, leaving out of account the imposition of new

burdens on the Treasury, concluded with an adverse balance, which was

calculated to damp the courage of any economical expert. But when it was

realized that practically only the towns would be hit by the property

tax, the combined indignation of the urban deputies turned against the

assessment of 13½ per cent., and they demanded as compensation at least

the abolition of the meat tax, which they called undemocratic and

antediluvian. Add to this that the Commission adhered resolutely to the

long promised and always postponed improvement of Civil servants'

pay--for it could not be denied that the salaries of the Government

officials, clergy, and teachers of the Grand Duchy were miserable.

But Doctor Krippenreuther could not make gold--he said in so many words,

"I've never learnt to make gold," and he found himself equally unable to

abolish the meat tax and to ameliorate the conditions in the Civil

Service. His only resource was to anchor himself to his 13½ per cent.,

although no one knew better than he that its sanction would not really

bring things any nearer their solution. For the position was serious,

and despondent spirits painted it in gloomy colours.

The "Almanac of the Grand Ducal Statistical Bureau" contained alarming

returns of the harvest for the last year. Agriculture had a succession

of bad years to show; storms, hail, droughts, and inordinate rain had

been the lot of the peasants; an exceptionally cold and snowless winter

had resulted in the seed freezing; and the critics maintained, though

with little proof to show for it, that the timber-cutting had already

influenced the climate. At any rate figures proved that the total yield

of corn had decreased in a most disquieting degree. The straw, besides

being deficient in quantity, left much to be wished from the point of

view of quality, in the opinion of the compilers of the report.

The figures of the potato harvest fell far below the average of the

preceding decade, not to mention that no less than 10 per cent. of the

potatoes were diseased. As to artificial feeding-stuffs, these showed

for the last two years results both in quality and quantity which, for

clover and manure, were as bad as the worst of the years under review,

and things were no better with the rapeseed harvest or with the first

and second hay crops. The decline in agriculture was baldly shown in the

increase of forced sales, whose figures in the year under review had

advanced in a striking way. But the failure of crops entailed a falling

off in the produce of taxation which would have been regrettable in any

country, but in ours could not help having a fatal effect.

As to the forests, nothing had been made out of them. One disaster had

followed another; blight and moths had attacked the woods more than

once. And it will be remembered that owing to over-cutting the woods had

lost seriously in capital value.

The silver-mines? They had for a long time proved barren. The work had

been interrupted by convulsions of nature, and as the repairs would have

cost large sums, and the results had never showed signs of coming up to

expectations, it had been found necessary provisionally to suspend the

workings, though this threw a number of labourers out of work and caused

distress in whole districts.

Enough has been said to explain how matters stood with the ordinary

State revenues in this time of trial. The slowly advancing crisis, the

deficit carried forward from one year to another, had become burning

owing to the straits of the people and the unfavourableness of the

elements. It had begun to cry aloud for remedy, and, when one looked

around despairingly for the remedy, or even for means of alleviation,

the most purblind could not fail to see the whole hideousness of our

financial condition. There could be no thought of voting for new

expenditure, the country was naturally incapable of bearing much

taxation. It was now exhausted, its tax-paying powers adversely

affected, and the critics declared that the sight of insufficiently

nourished human beings was becoming more and more common in the country.

They attributed this firstly to the shocking taxes on provisions and

secondly to the direct taxation which was known to oblige stock-owners

to turn all their full-milk into cash. As to the other less respectable

though enticingly easy remedy for dearth of money, of which the

financial authorities were well aware, namely the raising of a loan, the

time was come when an improper and inconsiderate use of this means must

begin to bring its own bitter punishment.

The liquidation of the national debt had been taken in hand for a time

in a clumsy and harmful way. Then under Albrecht II it had stopped

altogether. The yawning rifts in the State had received an emergency

stuffing of new loans and paper issues, and subsequent Finance Ministers

had grown pale to find themselves faced with a floating consolidated

debt redeemable at an early date, whose total was scandalously large for

the total number of heads of the population.

Dr. Krippenreuther had not shrunk from the practical steps open to the

State in such a predicament. He had steered clear of big capital

obligations, had demanded compulsory redemption of bonds, and, while

reducing the rate of interest, had converted short-dated debts over the

heads of the creditors into perpetual rent-charges. But these

rent-charges had to be paid; and while this incumbrance was an

unbearable burden on the national economy, the lowness of the rate of

exchange caused every fresh issue of bonds to bring in less capital

proceeds to the Treasury. Still more: the economic crisis in the Grand

Duchy had the effect of making foreign creditors demand payments at an

exceptionally early date. This again lowered the rate of exchange and

resulted in an increased flow of gold out of the country, and

bank-smashes were daily occurrences in the business world.

In a word: our credit was shattered, our paper stood far below its

nominal value; and though the Landtag might perhaps have preferred to

vote a new loan to voting new taxes, the conditions which would have

been imposed upon the country were such that the negotiation seemed

difficult, if not impossible. For on the top of everything else came

this unpleasant factor, that the people were at that moment suffering

from the burden of that general economical disorder, that appreciation

in the price of gold, which is still vivid in everybody's memory.

What was to be done to get safe to land? Whither turn to appease the

hunger for gold which was devouring us? The disposal of the then

unproductive silver-mines and the application of the proceeds to the

payment of the debts at high interest was discussed at length. Yet, as

matters stood, the sale could not help turning out disadvantageously.

Further, not only would the State lose altogether the capital sunk in

the mines, but would relinquish its prospect of a return which might

perhaps sooner or later materialize. Finally, buyers did not grow on

every bush. For one moment--a moment of psychical despondency--the sale

of the national forests even was mooted. But it must be said that there

was still sense enough in the country to prevent our woods being

surrendered to private industry.

To complete the picture: still further rumours of sales were current,

rumours which suggested that the financial embarrassment penetrated even

to quarters which the loyal people had always hoped were far removed

from all the rubs of the time. The _Courier_, which was never used to

sacrifice a piece of news to its sympathetic feelings, was the first to

publish the news that two of the Grand Duke's schlosses, "Pastime" and

"Favourite," in the open country, had been put up for sale. Considering

that neither property was of any further use as a residence for the

royal family, and that both demanded yearly increasing outlay, the

administrators of the Crown trust property had given notice in the

proper quarter for steps to be taken to sell them: what did that imply?

It was obviously quite a different case from that of the sale of

Delphinenort, which had been the result of a quite exceptional and

favourable offer, as well as a smart stroke of business on behalf of the

State. People who were brutal enough to give a name to things which

finer feeling shrinks from specifying, declared right out that the

Treasury had been mercilessly set on by disquieted creditors, and that

their consent to such sales showed that they were exposed to relentless

pressure.

How far had matters gone? Into whose hands would the schlosses fall? The

more benevolent who asked this question were inclined to find comfort in

and to believe a further report, which was spread by the wiseacres;

namely, that on this occasion too the buyer was no one else but Samuel

Spoelmann--an entirely groundless and fantastic report, which, however,

proves what a rôle in the world of popular imagination was played by the

lonely, suffering little man who had settled down in such princely style

in their midst.

Yonder he lived, with his physician, his electric organ, and his

collection of glass, behind the pillars, the bow windows, and the

chiselled festoons of the schloss which had risen from its ruins at a

nod from him. He was hardly ever seen: he was always in bed with

poultices. But people saw his daughter, that curious creature with the

whimsical features who lived like a princess, had a countess for a

companion, studied algebra, and had walked in a temper unimpeded right

through the guard. People saw her, and they sometimes saw Prince Klaus

Heinrich at her side.

Raoul Ueberbein had used a strong expression when he declared that the

public "held their breath" at the sight. But he really was right, and it

can be truly said that the population of our town as a whole never

followed a social or public proceeding with such passionate, such

surpassing eagerness as Klaus Heinrich's visits to Delphinenort. The

Prince himself acted up to a certain point--namely up to a certain

conversation with his Excellency the Minister of State,

Knobelsdorff--blindly, without regard to the outside world and in

obedience only to an inner impulse. But his tutor was justified in

deriding in his fatherly way his idea that his proceedings could be kept

hid from the world. For whether it was that the servants on both sides

did not hold their tongues, or that the public had the opportunity of

direct observation, at any rate Klaus Heinrich had not met Miss

Spoelmann once since that first meeting in the Dorothea Hospital,

without its being remarked and discussed. Remarked? No, spied on, glared

at, and greedily jumped at! Discussed? Rather smothered in floods of

talk.

The intercourse of the two was the topic of conversation in Court

circles, salons, sitting- and bedrooms, barbers' shops, public-houses,

workrooms, and servants' halls, by cabmen on the ranks and girls at the

gates. It occupied the minds of men no less than women, of course with

the variations which are inherent in the different ways the sexes have

of looking at things. The always sympathetic interest in it had a

uniting, levelling effect: it bridged over the social gaps, and one

might hear the tram conductor turn to the smart passenger on the

platform with the question whether he knew that yesterday afternoon the

Prince had again spent an hour at Delphinenort.

But what was at once remarkable in itself and at the same time decisive

for the future was that throughout there never seemed for one moment to

be any feeling of scandal in the air, nor did all the tongue-wagging

seem merely the vulgar pleasure in startling events in high quarters.

From the very beginning, before any _arrière pensée_ had had time to

form, the thousand-voiced discussion of the subject, however animated,

was always pitched in a key of approval and agreement. Indeed, the

Prince, if it had occurred to him at an earlier stage to adapt his

conduct to public opinion, would have realized at once to his delight

how entirely popular that conduct was. For when he called Miss Spoelmann

a "princess" to his tutor, he had, quite properly, accurately expressed

his people's mind--that people which always surrounds the uncommon and

visionary with a cloud of poetry.

Yes, to the people the pale, dark, precious, and strangely lovely

creature of mixed blood, who had come to us from the Antipodes to live

her lonely and unprecedented life amongst us--to the people she was a

princess--or Fairy-child from Fableland, a princess in the world's most

wonderful meaning. But everything, her own behaviour as much as the

attitude of the world towards her, contributed to make her appear a

princess in the ordinary sense of the word also. Did she not live with

her companion countess in a schloss, as was meet and right? Did she not

drive in her gorgeous motor or her four-in-hand to the benevolent

institutions, the homes for the blind, for orphans, and for deaconesses,

the public kitchens and the milk-kitchens, to teach herself and to

stimulate them by her inspection, like a complete princess?

Had she not subscribed to support the victims of flood and fire out of

her "privy purse," as the _Courier_ was precise enough to declare,

subscriptions which nearly equalled those of the Grand Duke (did not

exceed them, as was noticed with general satisfaction)? Did not the

newspapers publish almost daily, immediately under the Court news,

reports of Mr. Spoelmann's varying health--whether the colic kept him in

bed or whether he had resumed his morning visits to the Spa-gardens?

Were not the white liveries of his servants as much a part of the

picture in the streets of the capital as the brown of the Grand Ducal

lackeys? Did not foreigners with guide-books ask to be taken out to

Delphinenort, there to gloat over the sight of Spoelmann's house--many

of them before they had seen the Old Schloss?

Were not both Schlosses, the Old and Delphinenort, about equally centres

and foci of the city? To what circle of society belonged that human

being who had been born Samuel Spoelmann's daughter, that creature

without counterpart, without analogy? To whom should she attach herself,

with whom have intercourse? Nothing could be less surprising, nothing

more obvious and natural than to see Klaus Heinrich at her side. And

even those who had never enjoyed that sight enjoyed it in the spirit and

gloated over it: the slim, solemnly familiar figure of the Prince by the

side of the daughter and heiress of the prodigious little foreigner,

who, ill and peevish as he was, disposed of a fortune which amounted to

nearly twice as much as our national debt!

Then one day a memory, a wonderful disposition of words, took hold of

the public conscience; nobody can say who first pointed to it, recalled

it--that is quite uncertain. Perhaps it was a woman, perhaps a child

with credulous eyes, whom somebody was sending to sleep with

stories--heaven only knows. But a ghostly form began to show liveliness

in the popular imagination: the shadow of an old gipsy-woman, grey and

bent, with an inward squint, who drew her stick through the sand, and

whose mumbling had been written down and handed down from generation to

generation.... "The greatest happiness?" It should come to the land

through a Prince "with one hand." He would give the country, the

prophecy ran, more with his one hand than others could with two.... With

one? But was everything all right with Klaus Heinrich's slim figure?

When one thought of it, was there not a weakness, a defect in his

person, which one always avoided seeing when addressing him, partly from

shyness, and partly because with charming skill he made it so easy not

to notice it? When one saw him in his carriage, he kept his left hand on

his sword-hilt covered with his right. One could see him under a

baldachin, on a flag-bedecked platform, take up a position slightly

turned to the left, with his left hand planted somehow on his hip. His

left arm was too short, the hand was stunted, everybody knew that, and

knew various explanations of the origin of the defect, although respect

and distance had not allowed a clear view of it or even its recognition

in so many words. But now everybody saw it. It could never be

ascertained who first whispered and quoted the prophecy in this

connexion--whether it was a child, or a girl, or a greybeard on the

threshold of the beyond.

But what is certain is, that it was the people who started it, the

people who imposed certain thoughts and hopes--and quite soon their

conception of Miss Spoelmann's personality--on the cultured classes

right up to the highest quarters, and exercised a powerful influence on

them from below: that the impartial, unprejudiced belief of the people

afforded the broad and firm foundation for all that came later. "With

one hand?" people asked, and "the greatest happiness?" They saw Klaus

Heinrich in the spirit by Imma Spoelmann's side with his left hand on

his hip, and, still incompetent to think their thought out to its

conclusion, they quivered at their half-thought.

At that time everything was still in the clouds, and nobody thought

anything out to its conclusion--not even the persons most immediately

concerned. For the relations between Klaus Heinrich and Imma Spoelmann

were wondrous strange, and their minds--his as well--could not be

brought to centre on any immediate, palpable goal. As a matter of fact,

that laconic conversation on the afternoon of the Prince's birthday

(when Miss Spoelmann had showed him her books) had made but the

slightest, if any, alteration in their relations. Klaus Heinrich may

have gone back to the "Hermitage" in that condition of heated enthusiasm

proper to young people on such occasions, convinced that something

decisive had happened: but he soon learned that his wooing of what he

had recognized to be his only happiness was only now really beginning.

But, as has been said, this wooing could not aim at any objective

result, a bourgeois promise or such-like--such an idea was almost

inconceivable, and besides the Prince lived in too great seclusion from

the practical world for such an end to present itself to him. In fact

the object of Klaus Heinrich's pleadings with looks and words from that

time onward was not that Miss Spoelmann should reciprocate the feelings

he entertained towards her, but that she might feel impelled to believe

in the reality and liveliness of those feelings. For that was what she

did not do.

He let two weeks pass before he sent in his name at Delphinenort again,

and during these he feasted spiritually on what had already occurred. He

was in no hurry to supersede that happening with a new one. Besides, his

time just now was occupied by several representative functions,

including the annual festival of the Miniature Range Rifle Club, whose

well-informed patron he was and in whose anniversary festival he

annually took part. Here he was received in his green uniform, as if his

sole interest in life was rifle-shooting, by the united members of the

association with an enthusiastic welcome, was conducted to the butts,

and, after an unappetizing luncheon with the distinguished members of

the committee, fired several shots in a gracefully expert attitude in

the direction of various targets.

When he proceeded--it was the middle of June--to pay another afternoon

visit to the Spoelmanns, he found Imma in a very mocking mood, and her

mode of expression was unusually Scriptural and solemn. Mr. Spoelmann

also was present this time, and although his presence robbed Klaus

Heinrich of the _tête-à-tête_ he so much desired with the daughter, yet

it helped him in a quite unexpected way to bear up against the wounds

which Imma's sharpness gave him; for Samuel Spoelmann was friendly, and

almost affectionate towards him.

They had tea on the terrace, sitting in basket-chairs of an ultra-modern

shape, with the breezes from the flower-garden softly fanning them. The

master of the house lay under a green-silk, fur-lined, and

parrot-embroidered coverlet, stretched by the table on a cane couch

fitted with silk cushions. He had left his bed for the sake of the mild

air, but his cheeks to-day were not inflamed, but of a sallow paleness,

and his eyes were muddy; his chin protruded sharply, his prominent nose

looked longer than ever, and his tone was not cross, as usual, but

sad--a bad sign. By his head sat Doctor Watercloose with his continual

soft smile.

"Hullo, young Prince ..." said Mr. Spoelmann in a tired tone, and

answered the other's inquiry as to his health merely with half a grunt.

Imma, in a shimmering dress with a high waist and green-velvet bolero,

poured water into the pot out of the electric kettle. She congratulated

the Prince with a pout on his personal prowess at the rifle festival.

She had, she said, as she wagged her head backwards and forwards, "read

an account of it in the daily press with deep satisfaction," and had

read aloud the description of his exploits as marksman to the Countess.

The latter was sitting bolt upright in her tight brown dress at the

table, and handling her spoon gracefully, without in any way letting

herself go. It was Mr. Spoelmann who did the talking this time. He did

it, as has been said, in a soft, sad way, the result of all his

suffering.

He recounted an occurrence, an experience of years gone by, which was

obviously still fresh to him, and which always brought him new suffering

on the days when his health was bad. He recounted the short and simple

story twice, with even greater self-torture the second time than the

first. He had wished to make one of his endowments--not one of the first

rank, but a pretty considerable one--he had given a big philanthropic

institute in the United States to understand in writing that he wished

to devote a million in railway bonds to the furtherance of their noble

work--safe paper of the South Pacific Railway, said Mr. Spoelmann, and

slapped the palm of his hand, as if to show the paper. But what had the

philanthropic institute done? It had refused the gift, rejected

it--adding in so many words that it preferred to go without the support

of questionable and ill-gotten plunder. They had actually done that. Mr.

Spoelmann's lips quivered as he recounted it, the first time no less

than the second, and, longing for comfort and expressions of

disapproval, he looked round the table with his little, close-set,

metallic eyes.

"That was not philanthropic of the philanthropic institute," said Klaus

Heinrich. "No, it certainly was not." And the shake of his head was so

decided, his disgust and sympathy so obvious, that Mr. Spoelmann cheered

up a little and declared that it was lovely outside to-day and the trees

down yonder smelt nice. Indeed, he took the first opportunity of showing

his young guest his appreciation and satisfaction in the clearest

manner. For Klaus Heinrich had caught a chill with this summer's

constant alternations between warm weather and cooling showers and

hailstorms. His neck was swollen, his throat felt sore when he

swallowed; and as his lofty calling and a certain amount of

molly-coddling of his person, in request as it was for exhibition, had

necessarily made him rather delicate, he could not help alluding to it

and complaining of the pain in his neck.

"You must have wet compresses," said Mr. Spoelmann. "Have you any

oil-silk?" Klaus Heinrich had none. Then Mr. Spoelmann threw off the

parrot coverlet, stood up, and went inside the Schloss. He would not

answer any questions, insisted on going, and went. When he had gone, the

others asked each other what he intended to do, and Doctor Watercloose,

fearing lest an attack of pain had seized his patient, hurried after

him. But when Mr. Spoelmann returned he had in his hand a piece of

oil-silk, whose existence in some drawer he had remembered: a rather

creased piece, which he handed to the Prince with precise directions how

to use it, so as to get the most good out of it. Klaus Heinrich thanked

him delightedly, and Mr. Spoelmann got contentedly back on to his couch.

This time he stayed there till the end of tea, when he proposed a

general walk round the park, in the following order: Mr. Spoelmann in

his soft slippers between Imma and Klaus Heinrich, while Countess

Löwenjoul followed at a short distance with Dr. Watercloose.

When the Prince took leave for the day, Imma Spoelmann made some sharp

remark about his neck and the wet compresses, adjured him half-mockingly

to nurse himself and to take the utmost care of his sacred person. But

although Klaus Heinrich had no adequate repartee ready for her--she did

not expect or want one--yet it was in a fairly cheerful frame of mind

that he mounted his dog-cart; for the piece of creased oil-silk in the

back pocket of his uniform coat seemed to him, though unconsciously, a

pledge of a happy future.

However that might be, for the present his struggle was only beginning.

It was the struggle for Imma Spoelmann's faith, the struggle to make her

so far trust him as to be capable of deciding to leave the clear and

frosty sphere wherein she had been wont to play, to descend from the

realms of algebra and conversational ridicule, and to venture with him

into the untrodden zone, that warmer, more fragrant, more fruitful zone

to which he showed her the way. For she was overpoweringly shy of making

any such decision.

Next time he was alone with her, or as good as alone, because Countess

Löwenjoul was the third, it was a cool, over-cast morning, after a break

in the weather the night before. They rode along the meadow-woods, Klaus

Heinrich in high boots, with the crook of his crop suspended between the

buttons of his grey cloak. The sluices at the wooden bridge up stream

were shut, the bed of the stream lay empty and stony. Percival, whose

first outburst had died down, jumped here and there or trotted sideways,

dog-fashion, in front of the horses. The Countess, on Isabeau, kept her

head on one side and smiled. Klaus Heinrich was saying: "I'm always

thinking, night and day, about something which must have been a dream. I

lie at night and can hear Florian over in the stall snuffling, it's so

quiet. And then I think, for certain it was no dream. But when I see you

as I do to-day, and did the other day at tea, I cannot possibly think it

anything more substantial."

She replied: "I must ask you to explain yourself, Sire."

"Did you show me your books nineteen days ago, Miss Spoelmann--or not?"

"Nineteen days ago! I must count up. No; let's see, it's eighteen and a

half days, unless I'm quite out."

"You did show me your books, then?"

"That is undoubtedly correct, Prince. And I delude myself with the hope

that you liked them."

"Oh, Imma, you mustn't talk like that, not now and not to me! My heart

is so heavy, and I have such lots still to say to you, which I couldn't

get out nineteen days ago, when you showed me your books ... your masses

of books. How I should love to carry on where we broke off then, and to

forget all that lies in between...."

"For heaven's sake, Prince, rather forget the other. Why go back to it?

Why remind yourself and me? I thought you had good reason to observe the

strictest silence on such subjects. Fancy letting yourself go like that!

Losing your self-possession to such a degree!"

"If you only knew, Imma, how unutterably pleasant it is for me to lose

my self-possession!"

"No, thanks. That's insulting, do you know that? I insist on your

showing the same self-possession towards me as towards the rest of the

world. I'm not here to provide you with relaxation from your princely

existence."

"How entirely you misunderstand me, Imma! But I am well aware that you

do so deliberately and only in fun, and that shows me that you don't

believe me and don't take what I say seriously...."

"No, Prince, you really ask too much. Haven't you told me about your

life? You went to school for show, to the University for show, you

served as a soldier for show, and still wear the uniform for show, you

hold audiences for show, and play at rifle-shooting and heaven knows

what else for show; you came into the world for show, and am I suddenly

to believe that there is anything serious about you?"

Tears came to his eyes while she said this: her words hurt him so much.

He answered gently: "You are right, Imma, there is a lot of fiction in

my life. But I didn't make it or choose it, you must remember, but have

done my duty precisely and sternly as it was prescribed to me for the

edification of the people. And it is not enough that it has been a hard

one, and full of prohibitions and privations; it must now take revenge

on me, by causing you not to believe me."

"You are proud," she said, "of your calling and your life, Prince, I

know well, and I cannot wish you to break faith with yourself."

"Oh," he cried, "leave that to me, that about being true to myself, and

don't give it a thought! I have had experiences, I have been untrue to

myself and have tried to get round the prohibitions, and it ended in my

disgrace. But since I have known you, I know, I know for the first time,

that I may for the first time, without remorse or harm to what is

described as my lofty calling, let myself go like anybody else, although

Doctor Ueberbein says, and says in Latin, that that must never be."

"There, you see what your friend said."

"Didn't you yourself call him a poor wretch, who would come to a sad

end? He's a fine character; I esteem him greatly, and owe him many hints

about myself and things in general. But I've often thought about him

recently, and as you expressed so unfavourable a verdict upon him then,

I have spent hours considering your verdict, and was forced to own you

right. For I'll tell you, Imma, how things stand with Doctor Ueberbein.

His whole life is hostile to happiness, that's what it is."

"That seems to me a very proper hostility," said Imma Spoelmann.

"Proper," he answered, "but wretched, as you yourself said, and what's

more, sinful, for it is a sin against something nobler than his severe

propriety, as I now see, and it's this sin in which he wished to educate

me in his fatherly fashion. But I've now grown out of his education, at

this point I have, I'm now independent and know better; and though I may

not have convinced Ueberbein, I'll convince you, Imma, sooner or later."

"Yes, Prince, I must grant you that! You have the powers of conviction,

your zeal carries one along irresistibly with it! Nineteen days, didn't

you say? I maintain that eighteen and a half is right, but it comes to

much the same thing. In that time you have condescended to appear at

Delphinenort once--four days ago."

He threw a startled look at her.

"But, Imma, you must have patience with me, and some indulgence.

Consider, I'm still awkward ... this is strange ground. I don't know how

it was.... I believe I wanted to let us have time. And then there came

several calls upon me."