Chapter XII: Part 12

She did not prevent him from coming once or twice a week; she did not prevent him from speaking, from assailing her with prayers and asseverations and from taking her hand now and then between his own. But she was only patient, she remained unmoved, her dread of taking the decisive step, that aversion from leaving her cool and derisive kingdom and confessing herself his, seemed unconquerable; and she could not help, in her anguish and exhaustion, breaking out with the words: "Oh, Prince, we ought never to have met--it would have been best if we hadn't. Then you would have pursued your lofty calling as calmly as ever, and I should have preserved my peace of mind, and neither would have harassed the other!"

The Prince had much difficulty in inducing her to recant, and in extorting from her the confession that she did not entirely regret having made his acquaintance. But all this took time. The summer came to an end, early night-frosts loosened the still-green leaves from the trees, Fatma's, Florian's, and Isabeau's hoofs rustled in the red-and-gold leafage when they went for a ride. Autumn came with its mists and sharp smells--and nobody could have prophesied an end, or indeed any decisive turn in the course of the strangely fluctuating affair.

The credit of having placed things on the foundation of actuality, of having given events the lead in the direction of a happy issue, must for ever be ascribed to the distinguished gentleman who had up till now wisely kept in the background, but at the right moment intervened carefully but firmly. I refer to Excellency von Knobelsdorff, Minister of the Interior, Foreign Affairs, and the Grand Ducal Household.

Dr. Ueberbein had been correct in his assertion that the President of the Council had kept himself posted in the stages of Klaus Heinrich's love affair. What is more, well served by intelligent and sagacious assistants, he had kept himself well in touch with the state of public opinion, with the rôle which Samuel Spoelmann and his daughter played in the imaginative powers of the people, with the royal rank with which the popular idea invested them, with the great and superstitious tension with which the population followed the intercourse between the Schlosses "Hermitage" and Delphinenort, with the popularity of that intercourse: in a word, he was well aware how the Spoelmanns, for everyone who did not deliberately shut his eyes, were the general topic of conversation and rumour, not only in the capital, but in the whole country. A characteristic incident was enough to make Herr Knobelsdorff sure of his ground.

At the beginning of October--the Landtag had been opened a fortnight before, and the disputes with the Budget Commission were in full swing--Imma Spoelmann fell ill, very seriously ill, so it was said at first. It seemed that the imprudent girl, for some whim or mood, while out with her countess, had ventured on a gallop of nearly half an hour's duration on her white Fatma in the teeth of a strong north-east wind, and had come home with an attack of congestion of the lungs, which threatened to end her altogether.

The news soon got about. People said the girl was hovering between life and death, which, as luckily soon emerged, was a great exaggeration. But the consternation, the general sympathy, could not have been greater if a serious accident had happened to a member of the House of Grimmburg, even to the Grand Duke himself. It was the sole topic of conversation. In the humbler parts of the city, near the Dorothea Hospital for instance, the women stood in the evening outside their front doors, pressed the palms of their hands against their breasts, and coughed, as if to show each other what it meant to be short of breath. The evening papers published searching and expert news of the condition of Miss Spoelmann, which passed from hand to hand, were read at family gatherings and cafés, and were discussed in the tram-cars. The _Courier's_ reporter had been seen to drive in a cab to Delphinenort, where, in the hall with the mosaic floor, he had been snubbed by the Spoelmanns' butler, and had talked English to him--though he found that no easy task.

The press, moreover, could not escape the reproach of having magnified the whole business, and made a quite unnecessary fuss about it. There was absolutely no question of any danger. Six days in bed under the care of the Spoelmanns' private physician sufficed to relieve the congestion, and to make Miss Spoelmann's lungs quite well again. But these six days sufficed also to make clear the importance which the Spoelmanns, and Miss Imma's personality in particular, had achieved in our public opinion. Every morning found the envoys of the newspapers, commissioners of the general curiosity, gathered in the mosaic hall at Delphinenort to hear the butler's curt bulletins, which they then reproduced in their papers at the inordinate length which the public desired.

One read of greetings and wishes for recovery sent to Delphinenort by various benevolent institutions which Imma Spoelmann had visited and richly subscribed to (and the wits remarked that the Grand Ducal Treasury might have taken the opportunity of offering their homage in a similar way). The public read also--and dropped the paper to exchange a significant look--of a "beautiful floral tribute," which Prince Klaus Heinrich had sent with his card (the truth being that the Prince, so long as Miss Spoelmann kept to her bed, sent flowers not once, but daily, to Delphinenort, a fact which was not mentioned by those in the know, so as not to make too great a sensation).

The public read further that the popular young patient had left her bed for the first time, and finally the news came that she was soon to go out for the first time. But this going out, which took place on a sunny autumn morning, eight days after the patient had been taken ill, was calculated to give rise to such an expression of feeling on the part of the population as people of stern self-possession labelled immoderate. For round the Spoelmanns' huge olive-varnished, red-cushioned motor, which, with a pale young chauffeur of an Anglo-Saxon type on the box, waited in front of the main door at Delphinenort, a big crowd had gathered; and when Miss Spoelmann and Countess Löwenjoul, followed by a lackey with a rug, came out, cheers broke out, hats and handkerchiefs were waved, until the motor had forced a way through the crowd and had left the demonstrators behind in a cloud of vapour. It must be confessed that these consisted of those rather doubtful elements who usually collect on such occasions: half-grown youths, a few women with market-baskets, one or two schoolboys, gapers, loafers, and out-of-works of various descriptions.

But what is the public and what should its composition be to make it an average public? One further assertion must not be passed over entirely in silence which was later disseminated by the cynics. It was to the effect that among the crowd round the motor there was an agent in Herr von Knobelsdorff's pay, a member of the secret police, who had started the cheers and vigorously kept them going. We can leave that in doubt, and not grudge the belittlers of important events their satisfaction.

At least, in the case of this particular crowd, it only amounts to saying that the agent's task was the mechanical release of feelings which must have been there and must have been vivid. At any rate this scene, which of course was described at length in the daily press, did not fail to impress everybody, and persons with any acumen for the connexion of things felt no doubt that a further piece of news, which busied men's minds a few days later, stood in hidden relation to all these phenomena and symptoms.

The news ran that his Royal Highness Prince Klaus Heinrich had received his Excellency the Minister of State von Knobelsdorff in audience at the Schloss "Hermitage," and had been closeted with him from three o'clock in the afternoon till seven o'clock in the evening. A whole four hours! What had they discussed? Surely not the next Court Ball? As a matter of fact, the Court Ball had been one among several topics of conversation.

Herr von Knobelsdorff had preferred his request for a confidential talk with the Prince in connexion with the Court Hunt, which had taken place on October 10th in the woods to the west near Schloss "Jägerpreis," and in which Klaus Heinrich and his red-haired cousins, dressed in green uniforms, soft felt hats, and top-boots, and hung with field-glasses, hangers, hunting-knives, bandoliers, and pistol cases, had taken part. Herr von Braunbart-Schellendorf had been consulted, and three o'clock on October 12th decided on. Klaus Heinrich himself had offered to visit the old gentleman at his official residence, but Herr von Knobelsdorff had preferred coming to the "Hermitage." He came punctually, and was received with all the affection and warmth which Klaus Heinrich thought that propriety demanded in the case of the aged counsellor of his father and his brother. The sober little room, in which stood the three fine mahogany Empire arm-chairs, with the blue lyre-embroidery on the yellow ground, was the scene of the interview.

Though close on seventy, Excellency von Knobelsdorff was vigorous both in body and mind. His frock-coat showed not one senile wrinkle, but was tightly and well filled with the compact and comfortable form of a man of happy disposition. His well-preserved hair was pure white, like his short moustache, and parted smoothly in the middle; his chin had a sympathetic pit in it, which might pass for a dimple. The fan-shaped wrinkles at the corners of his eyes played as livelily as ever--indeed, they had gained with the years some little branches and additional lines, so that the whole complication of ever-shifting wrinkles imparted to his blue eyes an expression of humorous subtlety.

Klaus Heinrich was attached to Herr von Knobelsdorff, though no closer relations had been established between them. The Minister of State had actually superintended and organized the Prince's life. He had begun by fixing on Dröge to be his first tutor; had then called the "Pheasantry" into life for him; had sent him later to the University with Dr. Ueberbein; had also arranged his military service for show, and had put Schloss "Hermitage" at his disposal to live in. But all this he had done at second-hand, and had rarely interviewed him in person. Indeed, when Herr von Knobelsdorff had met Klaus Heinrich during those years of education, he had inquired most respectfully as to the Prince's resolves and plans for the future, as if he were in complete ignorance of them; and perhaps it was just this fiction, which was firmly bolstered up on both sides, which had kept their intercourse throughout within the bounds of formality.

Herr von Knobelsdorff began the conversation in an easy though respectful tone, while Klaus Heinrich tried to discover the objects of his visit. The former then chatted about the hunt of the day before yesterday, made some pleasant reference to the amount of ground they had covered, and then mentioned casually his admirable colleague at the Treasury, Dr. Krippenreuther, who had also taken part in the hunt, and whose invalid appearance he regretted. Herr Krippenreuther had really not hit a thing.

"Yes, worry makes the hand unsteady," remarked Herr von Knobelsdorff, and so gave the Prince the cue for a direct reference to this worry. He spoke about the "by no means trifling" shortage in the estimates, about the Minister's discussions with the Budget Commission, the new property-tax, the rate of 13½ per cent., and the bitter opposition of the urban deputies, of the antediluvian meat tax, and the Civil Service's cries of hunger; and Klaus Heinrich, who had been surprised at first by so many dry facts, listened to him intently and nodded his head repeatedly.

The two men, the old and young, sat side by side on a slender, hardish sofa with yellow upholstery and wreath-like brass mountings, which stood behind the round table opposite the narrow glass door. The latter opened on to the terrace, and through it one could see the half-bare park and the duck pond floating in the autumn mist. The low, white, smooth stove, in which a fire was crackling, diffused a gentle warmth through the severely and scantily furnished room. Klaus Heinrich, though not quite able to follow the political proceedings, yet proud and happy at being so seriously talked to by the experienced dignitary, felt his mood growing more and more grateful and confidential. Herr von Knobelsdorff spoke pleasantly about the most unpleasant subjects. His voice was comforting, his remarks ably strung together and insinuating--and suddenly Klaus Heinrich became aware that he had dropped the subject of the State finances, and had passed on from Doctor Krippenreuther's worries to his, Klaus Heinrich's, own condition. Was Herr von Knobelsdorff mistaken? His eyes were beginning occasionally to play him tricks. But he wished he could think that his Royal Highness looked a little better, fresher, brighter--a look of tiredness, of worry, was unmistakable.... Herr von Knobelsdorff feared to seem importunate; but he must hope that these symptoms did not arise from any malady, bodily or mental?

Klaus Heinrich looked out at the mist. His look was still sealed: but though he sat on the hard sofa in his usual stiff, upright attitude, his feet crossed, his right hand over his left, and the upper part of his body turned towards Herr von Knobelsdorff, yet inwardly his stiffness relaxed at this juncture, and, worn out as he was by his strangely ineffectual struggle, it did not want much more to make his eyes fill with tears. He was so lonely, so destitute of counsellors. Dr. Ueberbein had recently kept far away from the "Hermitage." ... Klaus Heinrich merely said: "Ah, Excellency, that would take us too far."

But Herr von Knobelsdorff answered: "Too far? No, your Royal Highness need not be afraid of being too prolix. I confess that my knowledge of your Royal Highness's experiences is greater than I allowed to appear just now. Your Royal Highness can scarcely have anything new to tell me, apart from those refinements and details which rumour can never collect. But if it might comfort your Royal Highness to open his heart to an old servant, who carried you in his arms ... perhaps I might not be quite incapable of standing by your Royal Highness in word and deed."

And then it happened that something gave way in Klaus Heinrich's bosom, and poured out in a stream of confession: he told Herr von Knobelsdorff the whole story. He told it as one tells when the heart is full and everything comes tumbling out all at once through the lips; according to no plan, no chronological order, and with undue emphasis on unessentials, but with a burst of passion, and with that concreteness which is the product of passionate observation. He began in the middle, jumped unexpectedly to the beginning, hurried on to the conclusion (which did not exist), tumbled over himself, and more than once hesitated and stuck fast.

But Herr von Knobelsdorff's fore-knowledge made the review easier for him, enabled him by slipping in suggestive questions to float the ship again. And at last the picture of Klaus Heinrich's experiences with all their characters and leading actors, with the figures of Samuel Spoelmann, of the crazy Countess Löwenjoul, even of the collie, Percival, and especially that of Imma Spoelmann, with all its contrariness, lay there complete and full, ready to be discussed. The piece of oil-silk was referred to in full detail, for Herr von Knobelsdorff seemed to attach importance to it. Nothing was omitted, from the impressive incident at the changing of the guard to the last intimate and distressing struggles on horseback and on foot.

Klaus Heinrich was much wrought up when he finished, and his steel-blue eyes in the national cheek-bones were full of tears. He had left the sofa, thereby forcing Herr von Knobelsdorff also to get up, and wished on account of the heat to open the glass door into the little veranda, but Herr von Knobelsdorff stopped this by calling attention to the risk of a chill. He begged the Prince humbly to sit down again, as his Royal Highness could not conceal from himself the need for a calm discussion of the state of affairs. And both sat down again on the thinly cushioned sofa.

Herr von Knobelsdorff meditated awhile, and his face was as serious as it ever could be with his dimpled chin and the play of his eye-wrinkles. Then, breaking silence, he thanked the Prince with emotion for the great honour he had shown him by confiding in him. And in direct connexion with this Herr von Knobelsdorff, emphasizing each word, announced that whatever attitude the Prince had expected him, Herr von Knobelsdorff, to assume at this juncture, he, Herr von Knobelsdorff, was certainly not the man to oppose the wishes and hopes of the Prince, but much rather to show his Royal Highness the way to the longed-for goal to the best of his power.

Long silence ensued. Klaus Heinrich looked rapturously at Herr von Knobelsdorff's eyes with the fan-like wrinkles. Had he these wishes and hopes? Was there a goal? He was not sure of his ears. He said: "Your Excellency is kind enough ..."

Then Herr von Knobelsdorff added to his declaration a condition, and said: Frankly, on one condition only did he, as first official of the State, dare to exercise his modest influence on behalf of his Royal Highness.

"On one condition?"

"On condition that your Royal Highness does not take account only of your own happiness in a selfish and frivolous way, but, as your lofty calling demands, regards your personal destiny from the point of view of the Mass, the Whole."

Klaus Heinrich was silent, and his eyes were heavy in thought.

"Perhaps your Royal Highness," continued Herr von Knobelsdorff after a pause, "will allow me to leave this delicate and yet quite unavoidable topic for a while, and to turn to more general matters! This is the hour of confidence and mutual understanding ... I respectfully beg to be allowed to take advantage of it. Your Royal Highness is through your exalted position cut off from rude actuality, severed from it by delicate precautions. I shall not forget that this actuality is not--or only at second-hand--a matter for your Royal Highness. And yet the moment seems to me to have come for bringing at least a certain portion of this rude world to the immediate notice of your Royal Highness, entirely for your own sake. I plead beforehand for forgiveness, if I chance to stir up your Royal Highness's emotions too harshly by what I tell you."

"Please speak on, Excellency," said Klaus Heinrich hastily. Involuntarily he sat upright, just as one sits up straight in a dentist's chair and collects one's natural powers to withstand an attack of pain.

"I must ask for your undivided attention," said Herr von Knobelsdorff almost sternly. And then, as a corollary to the discussions with the Budget Commission, followed the statement, the clear, exhaustive, unembroidered lesson, well primed with figures and explanations of the fundamental facts and technical expressions, which showed the economical position of the country, the State, and brought our whole miserable plight with relentless clearness before the Prince's eyes.

Naturally these things were not entirely new and strange to him. Indeed, ever since he had assumed his representative rôle, they had served as a motive and subject for those formal questions which he used to address to burgomasters, agriculturists, and high officials, and to which he received answers which were merely answers and nothing more, and which were often accompanied by the smile which he had known all his life and which reminded him that he was born to be king. But all this had not yet forced itself upon him in its naked actuality, nor made serious claims on his thinking powers.

Herr von Knobelsdorff was by no means satisfied to get a few of Klaus Heinrich's usual encouraging words; he pressed the matter home, he cross-examined the young man, made him repeat whole sentences; he kept him relentlessly to the point, and reminded the Prince of a dry and skinny index-finger which stopped at each separate place and would not go on until convinced that the pupil really understood the lesson.

Herr von Knobelsdorff began at the rudiments, and talked about the country and its lack of development from a commercial and industrial point of view: he talked about the people, Klaus Heinrich's people, that shrewd and honest, sound and reliable stock. He spoke about the deficiency in the State reserves, the poor dividends paid by the railways, the insufficient coal supply. He touched on the administration of the forests, game preserves and stock-raising; he talked about the woods, the excessive felling, the immoderate stripping of litter, the crippling of the industry, the falling revenues from the forests. Then he went more closely into our stock of gold, discussed the natural inability of the people to pay heavy taxes, described the reckless finance of earlier periods. Thereupon he added up the figures of the State debt, which Herr von Knobelsdorff forced the Prince to repeat several times. They reached six hundred millions.

The lesson extended further to the debentures, conditions for interest and repayment. It came back to Doctor Krippenreuther's present anxiety, and described the seriousness of the situation. Suddenly pulling the "Annual of the Statistical Bureau" out of his pocket, Herr von Knobelsdorff instructed his pupil in the harvest returns for the previous years, summed up the untoward events which had caused their decline, pointed to the deficiencies in the taxes, the figures of which he had brought with him, and referred to the underfed adults and children whom one might see throughout the country-side. Then he turned to the general condition of the gold market, discoursed on the rise in the value of gold and the general economic unsoundness. Klaus Heinrich learned also about the lowness of the Exchange, the restlessness of the creditors, the leakage of gold, and the bank smashes; he saw our credit shaken, our paper valueless, and grasped to the full that the raising of a new loan was almost impossible.

The night was closing in, it was long past five, when Herr von Knobelsdorff ended his statement of the national economics. At this time Klaus Heinrich usually had his tea, but this time he only gave a passing thought to it, and nobody outside dared to disturb a conversation whose importance was shown by its duration. Klaus Heinrich listened and listened. He scarcely realized how much affected he was. But how could the other bring himself to say all that to him? He had not called him "Royal Highness" one single time during the interview, he had to some extent forced him, and grossly ignored the fact that he was "born to be king." And yet it was good and stimulating to hear all that and to have to bury oneself in it for reality's sake. He forgot to have the lights brought, his attention was so much occupied.

"It was these circumstances," concluded Herr von Knobelsdorff, "which I had in mind when I begged your Royal Highness to regard your personal wishes and plans continually in the light of the general good. I have no doubt that your Royal Highness will profit by this talk and by the facts I have been bold enough to put before you. And in this connexion I beg your Royal Highness to allow me to revert to your more personal case."

Herr von Knobelsdorff waited till Klaus Heinrich had made a sign of consent with his hand, and then went on: "If this affair is to have any future, it is desirable that it should now advance a step in its development. It is stagnating, it remains as formless and prospectless as the mist outside. That's intolerable. We must give it form, must thicken it out, must mark its outlines more clearly before the eyes of the world."

"Quite so! quite so! Give it form ... thicken it out.... That's it. That's absolutely necessary," agreed Klaus Heinrich, so much excited that he left the sofa and began to walk up and down the room. "But how? For heaven's sake, Excellency, tell me how?"

"The next external step," said Herr von Knobelsdorff, and remained sitting--so unusual was the occasion--"must be this, that the Spoelmanns be seen at Court."

Klaus Heinrich stopped still.

"No," he said, "never, if I know Mr. Spoelmann, will he let himself be persuaded to go to Court."

"Which," answered Herr von Knobelsdorff, "doesn't prevent his daughter from doing us this pleasure. The Court Ball's not so very far off; it rests with you, Royal Highness, to induce Miss Spoelmann to take part in it. Her companion is a countess ... a peculiar one, perhaps, but a countess, and that helps things. When I assure your Royal Highness that the Court will not fail to make things easy, I am speaking with the approbation of the Chief Master of the Ceremonies, Herr von Bühl zu Bühl."

The conversation now turned for three-quarters of an hour on questions of precedence, and the ceremonial conditions under which the presentation must be carried out. The distribution of cards was always left to Princess Catherine's Mistress of the Robes, a widowed Countess Trümmerhauff, who led the ladies' world at the festivities in the Old Castle.

But as to the act of presentation itself, Herr von Knobelsdorff had managed to secure some concessions of a deliberate, in fact definite character. There was no American Consul in the place--no reason on that account, explained Herr von Knobelsdorff, for letting the ladies be presented by any casual chamberlain; no, the Master of the Ceremonies himself requested the honour of presenting them to the Grand Duke. When? At what point of the prescribed procession? Why, undoubtedly, unusual circumstances demand exceptions. In the first place, then, in front of all the débutantes of the various ranks--Klaus Heinrich might assure Miss Spoelmann that this would be arranged. It would give rise to talk and sensation at Court and in the city. But never mind, so much the better. Sensation was by no means undesirable, sensation was useful, even necessary....

Herr von Knobelsdorff went. It had become so dark when he took his leave that the Prince and he could scarcely see each other. Klaus Heinrich, who now first became aware of it, excused himself in some confusion, but Herr von Knobelsdorff declared it to be a matter of no importance in what sort of light a conversation like that was carried on. He took the hand which Klaus Heinrich offered him, and grasped it in both his.

"Never," he said warmly, and these were his last words before he went, "never was the happiness of a prince more inseparable from that of his people. No, whatever your Royal Highness ponders and does, you will bear in mind that the happiness of your Royal Highness by the disposition of destiny has become a condition of the public weal, but that your Royal Highness on your side must recognize in the weal of your country the indispensable condition and justification of your own happiness."

Much moved, and not yet in a condition to arrange the thoughts which poured in on him in thousands, Klaus Heinrich remained behind in his homely Empire room.

He passed a restless night and went next morning, despite misty and damp weather, for a long and lonely ride. Herr von Knobelsdorff had talked clearly and voluminously, had given and accepted facts; but, for the fusion, modelling, and working up of these multifarious raw products he had given only curt, aphoristic instructions, and Klaus Heinrich found himself doomed to some heavy thinking while he lay awake at night, and later when he went for a ride on Florian.

When he got back to the "Hermitage" he did a remarkable thing. He wrote with a pencil on a piece of paper an order, a certain commission, and sent Neumann, the valet, with it to the Academy Bookshop in the University Strasse: Neumann came back with a package of books, which Klaus Heinrich had set out in his room, and which he began at once to read.

They were works of a sober and school-bookish appearance, with glazed paper backs, ugly leather sides, and coarse paper, and the contents were divided up minutely into sections, main divisions, sub-divisions, and paragraphs. Their titles were not stimulating. They were manuals and hand-hooks of economy, abstracts and outlines of State finance, systematic treatises on political economy. The Prince shut himself up in his study with these books, and gave instructions that he wished on no account to be disturbed.

The autumn was damp, and Klaus Heinrich felt little tempted to leave the "Hermitage." On Saturday he drove to the Old Schloss to give free audiences: otherwise his time was his own all this week, and he knew how to make use of it. Wrapped in his dressing-gown, he sat in the warmth of the low stove at his small, old-fashioned, little-used desk, and pored over his books on finance, with his temples resting in his hands. He read about the State expenditure and what it always consisted of, about the receipts and whence they flowed in when things were going well; he ploughed through the whole subject of taxation in all its branches; he buried himself in the doctrine of the budget, of the balance, of the surplus, and particularly of the deficit; he lingered longest over, and went deepest into, the public debt and its varieties, into loans, and relation between interest and capital and liquidation, and from time to time he raised his head from the book and dreamed with a smile about what he had read, as if it had been the gayest poetry.

For the rest, he found that it was not hard to grasp it all, when one set one's mind to it. No, this really serious actuality, in which he now played a part, this simple and rude texture of interests, this system of down-right logical needs and necessities, which countless young men of ordinary birth had to stuff into their heads, to be able to pass examinations in it, it was by no means so difficult to get hold of as he in his Highness had thought. The rôle of representation, in his opinion, was harder. And much, much more ticklish and difficult were his gentle struggles with Imma Spoelmann on horseback and on foot. His studies made him warm and happy, he felt that his zeal was making his cheeks hot, like those of his brother-in-law zu Ried-Hohenried over his peat.

After thus giving the facts which he had learnt from Herr von Knobelsdorff a general academic basis, and also accomplishing a feat of hard thinking in bringing together inward connexions and weighing possibilities, he again presented himself at Delphinenort at tea-time. The lights in the candelabra with the lions' feet and the big crystal lustres were burning in the garden room. The ladies were alone.

Klaus Heinrich first asked after Mr. Spoelmann's health and Imma's indisposition. He upbraided her freely for her strange impetuosity, to which she answered with a pout that as far as she knew she was her own mistress, and could do as she liked with her health. The conversation then turned to the autumn, to the damp weather which forbade rides, to the advanced time of year, and the proximity of winter, and Klaus Heinrich suddenly mentioned the Court Ball in connexion with which it occurred to him to ask whether the ladies--if unfortunately Mr. Spoelmann were prevented by the state of his health--would not care to take part in one this time. But when Imma answered, "No, really, she had no wish to be rude, but she had absolutely not the faintest desire to go to a Court Ball," he did not press the point, but postponed the question for the time.

What had he done these last few days?--Oh, he'd been very busy, he might say that he'd been chock-a-block with work.--Work? Doubtless he meant the Court Hunt at "Jägerpreis."--The Court Hunt? No. He had gone in for real study which he had by no means got to the bottom of yet; on the contrary he was sticking deep in the literature on the subject.... And Klaus Heinrich began to talk about his ugly books, his peeps into financial science, and he spoke with such pleasure and respect of this discipline that Imma Spoelmann looked at him with her big eyes. But when--almost timidly--she questioned him as to the motive and impulse for this activity, he answered that it was living, only too burning, questions of the day which had brought him to it: circumstances and conditions which were certainly not well suited for a cheerful talk at tea. This remark obviously offended Imma Spoelmann.

"On what observations," she asked sharply, wagging her head from side to side, "did he base his conviction that she was approachable only or preferably by way of cheerful conversation?" And she commanded him rather than asked him to be kind enough to explain about the burning questions of the day.

Then Klaus Heinrich explained what he had learnt from Herr von Knobelsdorff, and talked about the land and its state. He was well posted on every point at which the skinny index-finger had paused: he talked about the natural and the indebted, the general and the particular, the inherited and the intensifying misfortunes; he emphasized particularly the figures of the State debt, and the burden they laid on our national economy--they were six hundred millions--and he did not forget to mention the underfed peasants in the country-side.

He did not speak connectedly; Imma Spoelmann interrupted him with questions and helped him on with questions. She listened carefully, and asked for explanations of what she did not at once understand. Dressed in her loose-sleeved, red-silk dress with the broad embroidery on the yoke, an old-Spanish chain round her child-like neck, she sat leaning on one elbow over the table, her chin buried in her ringless hand, and listened with her whole soul, while her big, dark eyes scrutinized the Prince's face.

But while he spoke, in answer to Imma's verbal and ocular questions, worked at his subject, grew excited and entirely absorbed in it, Countess Löwenjoul no longer felt herself restricted to sober clarity by his presence, but let herself go and indulged in the luxury of drivelling. All the misery, she explained with dignified gestures, even the bad harvest, the burden of debt and the rise in the price of gold, were due to the shameless women who swarmed everywhere, and unfortunately had discovered the way through the floor, as last night the wife of a sergeant from the Grenadiers' Barracks had scratched her breasts and pommelled her in a horrible way. Then she alluded to her Schlosses in Burgundy, through the roofs of which the rain came, and went so far as to relate that she had gone as lieutenant in an expedition against the Turks, on which she had been the only one who "had not lost her head." Imma Spoelmann and Klaus Heinrich threw her a kind word now and then, readily promised to call her Frau Meier in future, and for the rest took no notice of her.

The cheeks of both were burning when Klaus Heinrich had said all he knew--even on Miss Spoelmann's usually pearl-white cheeks there was a shade of red to be seen. They then stopped, the Countess too kept quiet, with her little head inclined on her shoulder, and staring into vacancy. Klaus Heinrich played on the white and sharply folded table-cloth with the stem of an orchid, which had stood in a glass by his plate; but as soon as he raised his head he met Imma Spoelmann's large, flaming eyes, which spoke a message of secret entreaty across the table, a darkly eloquent language.

"It has been nice to-day," she said in her broken voice, when she said good-bye this time, and he felt her small, soft hands clasp his with a firm squeeze. "Next time your Highness honours our unworthy house, do bring me one or two of those excellent books you have bought." She could not entirely resist mocking him, but she asked him for his finance books, and he brought them to her.

He brought her two of them, which he considered the most informative and comprehensive; he brought them some days later in his carriage through the damp Town Garden, and she thanked him for doing so. As soon as tea was over, they retired to a corner of the room, and there, while the Countess absently continued sitting at the tea-table, they began their common studies in throne-like chairs at a gilt table, bending over the first page of a manual called "The Science of Finance." They even read the headings to the sections, each reading a sentence softly in turn; for Imma Spoelmann insisted on going methodically to work and beginning at the beginning.

Klaus Heinrich, well prepared as he was, acted as guide through the paragraphs, and nobody could have followed more smartly or clear-headedly than Imma.

"It's quite easy!" she said and looked up with a laugh. "I'm surprised that it is at bottom so simple. Algebra is much harder, Prince."

But as they went so deeply into things, they did not get far in one afternoon, so made a mark in the book at which to start next time.

And so they went on, and the Prince's visits to Delphinenort were devoted to dull realities. Whenever Mr. Spoelmann did not come to tea, or, with Dr. Watercloose, left them, after eating his rusk, Imma and Klaus Heinrich sat down at the gilt table with their books, and plunged heads together into the Science of Economics. But as they progressed, they compared what they learned with the reality, applied what they read to the circumstances of the country, as Klaus Heinrich conceived them to be, and made their studies profitable, though it happened not seldom that their investigations were interrupted by considerations of a personal kind.

"It seems, then," said Imma, "that the issue may be effected either directly or indirectly--yes, that's obvious. Either the State turns directly to the capitalists and opens a subscription list ... Your hand is twice as broad as mine," she said; "look, Prince."

And they looked laughingly at their hands, his right and her left, as they lay next each other on the gilt table.

"Or," went on Imma, "the loan is procured by negotiation, and it is some big bank, or group of banks, to which the State ..."

"Wait!" he said softly. "Wait, Imma, and answer me one question. Aren't you missing the main point? Are you making progress? What about the disenchantment and embarrassment, dear little Imma? Have you now just one spark of confidence in me?" His lips asked the question close to her hair, from which a delicate fragrance arose, and she held her dark head still and bent over the book, though she did not answer his question frankly.

"But must it be a bank or group of banks?" she pondered. "There's nothing about it there; I can't think it would be necessary in practice."

She spoke gravely and deliberately on these occasions, for she too for her part had to grapple with the mental exercises which Klaus Heinrich had successfully managed after the conversation with Herr von Knobelsdorff. And when some weeks later he repeated his question, whether she would not like to go to the Court Ball, and told her of the ceremonial conditions which had been sanctioned for this occasion, behold, she replied that she would like to, and would go next day with Countess Löwenjoul and leave cards on the widowed Countess Trümmerhauff.

This year the Court Ball took place earlier than usual; at the end of November--an arrangement which was said to be due to the wishes of the Grand Ducal Party. Herr von Bühl zu Bühl bitterly bewailed this precipitation, which obliged him and his subordinates to cancel the arrangements for the most important Court function, especially the improvements which the Gala Rooms in the Old Schloss so much needed. But the wish of the particular member of the Grand Ducal family had had the support of Herr von Knobelsdorff, and the Court Marshal had to give way. But it happened thus that people's minds scarcely had time to prepare themselves sufficiently for what really was the event of the evening, in comparison with which the unusual date seemed as nothing. Indeed, when the _Courier_ published in leaded type the news of the leaving of cards and the invitation--not without expressing in rather smaller type and in glowing words its satisfaction thereat, and welcoming Spoelmann's daughter to the Court--the important evening was already close at hand, and before tongues could get fairly wagging the whole thing was a completed reality.

Never had more envy attached to the five hundred favoured ones whose names stood on the Court Ball list, never had the bourgeois more eagerly devoured the account in the _Courier_--those dazzling columns which were written every year by a nobleman who had degenerated through drink, and which were such glorious reading that one felt they gave one a peep into Fairyland, while as a matter of fact the ball in the Old Schloss went off quite modestly and soberly. But the report only extended to the supper, including the French menu, and everything that came later, especially all the delicate significance of the great occasion, were necessarily left to be reported by word of mouth.

The ladies, in a huge olive-coloured motor, had pulled up in front of the Albrechtstor at the Old Schloss fairly punctually, though not so punctually that Herr von Bühl zu Bühl had not had time to get anxious. From a quarter-past seven onwards he had waited in full uniform, covered with orders down to his waist, with a bright brown toupée and his gold pince-nez on his nose, in the middle of the armour-hung Knights' Hall where the Grand Ducal family and the chief officials were collected; standing now on one foot, then on the other, and every now and then dispatching a footman to the ballroom to find out whether Miss Spoelmann had not yet come. He thought of all sorts of unheard-of possibilities. If this Queen of Sheba came too late--and what might one not expect of a girl who had walked right through the guard?--the entry of the Grand Ducal cortège would have to be delayed, and the Court would have to wait for her, for she simply must be introduced first, and it was out of the question that she should enter the ballroom after the Grand Duke.

But thank heaven! a bare minute before half-past seven she arrived with her Countess; and it made a great sensation when the Chamberlains who received them arranged them next the diplomats, and so in front of the nobility, the Court ladies, the Ministers, the Generals, the Presidents of Chambers, and all the Court world. Aide-de-camp von Platow had fetched the Grand Duke from his rooms. Albrecht, in hussar uniform, had greeted the members of his House with down-cast eyes in the Knights' Hall, had offered his arm to Aunt Catherine, and then, after Herr von Bühl had tapped three times with his staff on the parquet in the open doors, the procession of the Court into the ballroom had begun.

Eye-witnesses asserted later that the general inattention had verged on the scandalous during the perambulation of the Grand Duke. As Albrecht reached successive spots with his dignified aunt, a hasty bowing and billowing without the fitting composure ensued, but otherwise all faces were turned to one point only in the ball, all eyes directed with burning curiosity on this point alone.... She who stood yonder had had enemies in the hall, at least among the women, the female Trümmerhauffs, Prenzlaus, Wehrzahns, and Platows, who were plying their fans here, and sharp and cold female glances had scrutinized her. But whether her position was now too well established for criticism to venture to assail her, or her personality itself had conquered the secret opposition--all had declared with one voice that Imma Spoelmann was as fine as the daughter of the King of the Mountains.

The whole town, the clerk in the Government office, the messenger at the street corner, knew her toilette by heart next morning. It had been a gown of pale-green crêpe de chine, with silver embroidery and priceless old silver lace on the bodice. A tiara of diamonds had glittered in her dark hair, which showed a tendency to fall in smooth wisps across her forehead, and a long hanging chain of the same stones was wound two or three times round her brown throat. Small and child-like, yet strangely earnest and sensible-looking, with her pale face and big, strangely speaking eyes, she had stood in her place of honour by the side of Countess Löwenjoul, who had been dressed in brown as usual, though this time in satin. When the cortège reached her, she had, with a kind of coy pertness, made a suggestion of a curtsey, without completing it; but when Prince Klaus Heinrich, with the yellow ribbon and the flat chain of the Family Order "For Constancy" over his tunic, the silver star of the Grimmburg Griffin on his chest, and his anæmic cousin on his arm whose conversation was limited to "Yes," passed by her directly after the Grand Duke, she had smiled with closed lips and nodded to him like a comrade--which sent something like a quiver through the company.

Then, after the diplomats had been received by the Grand Ducal party, the presentations had begun--begun with Imma Spoelmann, although there had been two Countess Hundskeels and one Baroness von Schulenburg-Tressen among the débutantes. With an ingratiating smile, which showed his false teeth, Herr von Bühl had presented Spoelmann's daughter to his master. And Albrecht, sucking his lower lip against his upper, had looked down on her coy semi-curtsey, from which she had raised herself to scrutinize with her speaking eyes the suffering Hussar Colonel in his silent pride. The Grand Duke had addressed several questions to her, an exception to an otherwise strict rule; he had asked her how her father was, what effect the Ditlinde Spa had, and how she liked on the whole being with us--questions which she had answered in her broken voice with a pout and a wag of her dark head. Then, after a pause, a pause perhaps of internal struggle, Albrecht had expressed his pleasure at seeing her at Court; whereupon Countess Löwenjoul had executed her curtsey, with an evasive glance from her eyes.

This scene, Imma Spoelmann in the presence of Albrecht, long remained the favourite topic of conversation, and although it had passed, as it was bound to pass, without anything unusual happening, yet its charm and importance must not be overlooked. It was not indeed the climax of the evening. That, in the eyes of many, was the Quadrille d'honneur; in the eyes of others, the supper,--in reality, however, it was a secret duologue between the two chief actors in the piece, a short, unnoticed exchange of words, whose contents and actual result the public could only guess--the settlement of certain tender struggles on horseback and on foot.

As to the Quadrille d'honneur, there were people who declared next day that Miss Spoelmann had danced in it, with Prince Klaus Heinrich as her partner. Only the first part of this story was correct. Miss Spoelmann had taken part in the solemn dance, but as the British Consul's partner and Prince Klaus Heinrich's _vis-à-vis_. This was fairly strong, but what was still stronger was that the majority of the guests did not consider it an unheard-of thing, but on the contrary almost a matter of course.

Yes, Imma Spoelmann's position was established; the popular conception of her personality--as the public learned next day--had prevailed in the Court ballroom, and, what is more, Herr von Knobelsdorff had taken care that this conception should be expressed with all the publicity he thought desirable. Not with distinctive or aggressive respect; no, Imma Spoelmann had been treated ceremoniously, and at the same time with systematic, intentional emphasis. The two Masters of the Ceremonies on duty--Chamberlains in rank--had introduced selected dancers to her; and when she had left her place, close by the low red platform where the Grand Ducal family sat on damask chairs, to dance with her partners, they had busied themselves, just as when the princesses danced, in clearing her a space under the chandelier in the middle and protecting her from collisions--an easy task in any case, for a protective circle of curiosity had formed round her when she danced.

It was reported that when Prince Klaus Heinrich asked Miss Spoelmann for the first time, a deep drawing of breath, a formal "Sh" of excitement had been heard in the ballroom, and the Masters of the Ceremonies had found it difficult to keep the ball going and to prevent the whole company standing round the dancers in gaping curiosity. The women especially had watched the pair with an excited delight, which, had Miss Spoelmann's position been only a little weaker, would undoubtedly have taken on the form of rage and malice. But the pressure and influence of public feeling, that powerful inspiration from below, had worked too powerfully on every one of the five hundred guests for them to be able to regard this spectacle through any eyes other than those of the people. It did not seem to have occurred to the Prince to impose any restraint upon himself. His name--shortened to "K. H."--appeared twice on Miss Spoelmann's programme, and besides he had sat out several other dances with her. They had danced yonder. Her brown arm had rested on the yellow-silk ribbon that crossed his shoulder, and his right arm had encircled her light and child-like figure, while, as usual when he danced, he had placed the left on his hip and guided his partner with one hand only. With one hand!...

When supper-time came, a further article in the ceremonial conditions which Herr von Knobelsdorff had contrived for Imma Spoelmann's visit to Court came into staggering force. It was the article which dealt with the order of seating at the table. For while the majority of the guests supped at long tables in the picture gallery and in the Hall of the Twelve Months, supper was laid in the Silver Hall for the Grand Ducal family, diplomats, and leading Court officials. In solemn procession, as when they entered the ballroom, Albrecht and his party entered the supper-room punctually at eleven o'clock. And Imma Spoelmann passed by the lackeys, who kept the doors and repelled the uninvited, on the arm of the British Consul, and entered the Silver Hall to take her place at the Grand Ducal table.

That was unheard of--and at the same time, after all that had gone before, so logically consequential, that any surprise or disgust would have been idiotic. The motto for the day was to be prepared for anything in the way of omens and phenomena. But after supper, when the Grand Duke had withdrawn and Princess Griseldis had opened the cotillon with a Chamberlain, expectation was again raised to fever point, for the general question was, had the Prince been allowed to present Miss Spoelmann with a bouquet? His instructions had obviously been not to give her the first. He had first given one each to his Aunt Catherine and a red-haired cousin; but he had then advanced towards Imma Spoelmann with a bouquet of lilac from the Court gardens. As she was about to raise the lovely bunch to her nose, she had hesitated for some unknown reason with a look of apprehension, and it was not till he had encouraged her with a laugh and a nod that she decided to test the fragrance of the bouquet. Then they had danced and chatted quietly together for a long time.

And yet it was during this dance that that unnoticed duologue, that conversation of a palpably bourgeois tenor and practical result, had taken place--and this is what it was.

"Are you satisfied this time, Imma, with the flowers I bring you?"

"Of course, Prince, your lilac is lovely and smells quite as it should. I love it."

"Really, Imma? But I'm sorry for the poor rose-bush down in the court, because its roses disgust you with their mouldy smell."

"I won't say that they disgust me, Prince."

"But they disenchant and chill you, don't they?"

"Yes, perhaps."

"But have I ever told you of the popular belief that the rose-bush will one day be redeemed, on a day of general happiness, and will bear roses which will add to their great beauty the gift of a lovely natural scent?"

"Well, Prince, we'll have to wait for that."

"No, Imma, we must help and act! We must decide, and have done with all hesitation, little Imma! Tell me--tell me to-day--have you confidence in me?"

"Yes, Prince. I have gained confidence in you latterly."