“Father, darling father!” she said beseechingly, and crossed over to stroke Mr. Spoelmann's flushed cheeks.
“Surely,” he grumbled on, “you've grown out of that sort of thing by now.” But then he yielded to her blandishments, let her kiss the top of his head, and swallowed his anger. Klaus Heinrich, when peace was restored, alluded to the collection of glass, whereupon the party left the tea-table and went into the adjoining museum, with the exception of Countess Löwenjoul, who withdrew with a deep curtsey. Mr. Spoelmann himself switched on the electric light in the chandeliers.
Handsome cabinets in the style of the whole Schloss, with swelling curves and rounded glass doors, alternated with rich silk chairs all round the room. In these cabinets Mr. Spoelmann's collection of glass was displayed. Yes, there could be no doubt that it was the most complete collection in either hemisphere, and the glass which Klaus Heinrich had acquired was merely a most modest sample of it. It began in one corner of the room with the earliest artistic productions of the industry, with finds of heathenish designs from the culture of the earliest times; then came the products of theEast and West of every epoch; next, wreathed, flourished, and imposing vases and beakers from Venetian blow-pipes and costly pieces from Bohemian huts, German tankards, picturesque Guild and Electorate bowls, mixed with grotesque animals and comic figures, huge crystal cups, which reminded one of the Luck of Edenhall in the song, and in whose facets the light broke and sparkled; ruby-coloured glasses like the Holy Grail; and finally the best samples of the latest development of the art, fragile blossoms on impossibly brittle stems, and fancy glasses in the latest fashionable shape, made iridescent with the vapours of precious metals. The three, followed by Percival, who also examined the collection, walked slowly round the hall; and Mr. Spoelmann related in his harsh voice the origin of particular pieces, taking them carefully off their velvet stands with his thin, soft-cuffed hand, and holding them up to the electric light.
Klaus Heinrich had had plenty of practice in visits of inspection, in putting questions and making adroit remarks, so that he was well able at the same time to ponder over Imma Spoelmann's mode of expressing herself, that peculiar mode which worried him not a little. What amazing freedom she allowed herself! What extraordinary remarks she allowed herself to make! “Passion,” “vice,” where did she get the words from? where did she learn to use them so glibly? Had not Countess Löwenjoul, who herself dealt with the same topics in a confused sort of way, and had obviously seen the seamy side of life, described her as quite innocent!
And the description was undoubtedly correct, for was she not an exception by birth like himself, brought up like a girl “born to be queen,” kept apart from the busy strife of men and from all the turmoil to which those sinister words corresponded in the life of reality? But she had uttered the words glibly, and had treated them as a joke. Yes, that was it, this dainty creature in her red-gold gown was merely a wielder of words; she knew no more of life than those words, she played with the most serious and most awful of them aswith coloured stones, and was puzzled when she made people angry by their use. Klaus Heinrich's heart, as he thought of this, filled with sympathy.
It was nearly seven o'clock when he asked for his carriage to be called—slightly uneasy about his long stay, in view of the Court and the public. His departure evoked a fresh and terrifying demonstration on the part of Percival, the collie. Every alteration or interruption in a situation seemed to throw the noble animal off his moral balance. Quivering, yelping, and deaf to all blandishments, he stormed through the rooms and the hall and up and down the steps, drowning the words of leave-taking in his hubbub. The butler did the Prince the honours as far as the floor with the statues of gods. Mr. Spoelmann did not accompany him any distance. Miss Spoelmann made the position clear: “I am convinced that your sojourn in the bosom of our family has charmed you, Prince.” And he was left wondering whether the joke lay in the expression “the bosom of our family” or in the actual fact. Anyhow, Klaus Heinrich was at a loss for a reply.
Leaning back in the corner of his brougham, rather sore and battered, and yet stimulated by the unusual treatment he had experienced, he drove home, through the dark Town Gardens to the Hermitage, returned to his sober Empire room, where he dined with von Schulenburg-Tressen and Braunbart-Schellendorf. Next day he read the comments of theCourier. They amounted only to a statement that yesterday his Royal Highness Prince Klaus Heinrich went to Schloss Delphinenort for tea, and inspected Mr. Spoelmann's renowned collection of fancy glass.
And Klaus Heinrich continued to live his unreal life, and to carry out his exalted calling. He uttered his gracious speeches, made his gestures, represented his people at the Court and at the President of the Council's great ball, gave free audiences, lunched in the officers' mess of the Grenadier Guards, showed himself at the Court Theatre, and bestowedon this and that district of the country the privilege of his presence. With a smile, and with heels together, he carried out all due formalities and did his irksome duty with complete self-possession, albeit he had at this time so much to think of—about the peppery Mr. Spoelmann, the muddle-headed Countess Löwenjoul, the harum-scarum Percy, and especially about Imma, the daughter of the house. Many a question to which his first visit to Delphinenort had given rise he was not yet in a position to answer, but only succeeded in solving as the result of further intercourse with the Spoelmanns, which he maintained to the eager and at last feverish interest of the public, and which advanced a step further when the Prince in the early morning one day, to the astonishment of his suite, his servants, and himself—indeed, partly involuntarily, and as if carried along by destiny—appeared alone and on horseback at Delphinenort, for the purpose of taking Miss Spoelmann, whom he disturbed in her mathematical studies at the top of the Schloss, for a ride.
The grip of winter had relaxed early in this ever-to-be-remembered year. After a mild January, the middle of February had seen the coming of a preliminary spring with birds and sunshine and balmy breezes, and as Klaus Heinrich lay on the first of these mornings at the Hermitage in his roomy old mahogany bed, from one of whose posts the spherical crown was missing, he felt himself, as it were, impelled by a strange hand and irresistibly inspired to deeds of boldness.
He rang the bell-pull for Neumann (they only had draw-bells at the Hermitage), and ordered Florian to be ready saddled in an hour's time. Should a horse be got ready for the groom too? No, it was not necessary. Klaus Heinrich said that he wanted to ride alone. Then he gave himself into Neumann's skilful hands for his morning toilette, breakfasted impatiently below in the garden room, and mounted his horse at the foot of the terrace. With his spurred top-boots in the stirrups, the yellow reins in his brown-glovedright hand, and the left planted on his hip under his open cloak, he rode at a walking pace through the soft morning, scanning the still bare branches for the birds whose twittering he heard. He rode through the public part of his park, through the Town Gardens and the grounds of Delphinenort. He reached it at half-past nine. Great was the general surprise.
At the main gate he gave Florian over to an English groom. The butler, who was crossing the mosaic hall busy on his household duties, stood still, taken aback at the sight of Klaus Heinrich. To the inquiry which the Prince addressed to him, in a clear and almost haughty voice, about the ladies, he did not even reply, but turned helplessly towards the marble staircase, gazing dumbly at the top step, for there stood Mr. Spoelmann.
It seemed that he had just finished breakfast, and was in the best of tempers. His hands were plunged deep in his pockets, his lounge coat drawn back from his velvet waistcoat, and the blue smoke of his cigarette was making him blink.
“Well, young Prince?” he said, and stared down at him….
Klaus Heinrich saluted and hurried up the red stair-carpet. He felt that the situation could only be saved by swiftness and, so to speak, by an attack by storm.
“You will be astounded, Mr. Spoelmann,” he said, “at this early hour …” He was out of breath, and the fact disturbed him greatly, he was so little used to it.
Mr. Spoelmann answered him by a look and a shrug of the shoulders, as much as to say that he could control himself, but desired an explanation.
“The fact is, we have an appointment …” said Klaus Heinrich. He was standing two steps below the millionaire and was speaking up at him. “An appointment for a ride between Miss Imma and myself…. I have promised to show the ladies the ‘Pheasantry’ and the Court Kennels….Miss Imma told me that she knew nothing about the surrounding country. It was agreed that on the first fine day … It's such a lovely day to-day…. It is of course subject to your approval….”
Mr. Spoelmann shrugged his shoulders, and made a face as if to say: “Approval—why so?”
“My daughter is grown up,” he said. “I don't interfere. If she rides, she rides. But I don't think she has time. You must find that out for yourself. She's in there.” And Mr. Spoelmann pointed his chin towards the tapestry door, through which Klaus Heinrich had already once passed.
“Thanks,” said Klaus Heinrich. “I'll go and see for myself.” And he ran up the remaining steps, pushed the tapestry hanging aside with a determined gesture, and went down the steps into the sunlit, flower-scented winter garden.
In front of the splashing fountain and the basin with fancy-feathered ducks sat Imma Spoelmann leaning over a table, her back turned to the incomer. Her hair was down. It hung black and glossy on each side of her head, covered her shoulders, and allowed nothing to be seen but a shadow of the childlike quarter profile of her face, which showed white as ivory against the darkness of her hair. There she sat absorbed in her studies, working at the figures in the notebook before her, her lips pressed on the back of her left hand, and her right grasping the pen.
The Countess too was there, also busy writing. She sat some way off under the palms, where Klaus Heinrich had first conversed with her, and wrote sitting upright with her head on one side, a pile of closely scribbled note-paper lying at her side. The clank of Klaus Heinrich's spurs made her look up. She looked at him with half-closed eyes for two seconds, the long pen poised in her hand, then rose and curtseyed. “Imma,” she said, “his Royal Highness Prince Klaus Heinrich is here.”
Miss Spoelmann turned quickly round in her basket chair, shook her hair back and gazed without speaking at the intruderwith big, startled eyes, until Klaus Heinrich had bid the ladies good-morning with a military salute. Then she said in her broken voice: “Good-morning to you too, Prince. But you are too late for breakfast. We've finished long ago.”
Klaus Heinrich laughed.
“Well, it's lucky,” he said, “that both parties have had breakfast, for now we can start at once for a ride.”
“A ride?”
“Yes, as we agreed.”
“We agreed?”
“No, don't say that you've forgotten!” he said pleadingly. “Didn't I promise to show you the country round? Weren't we going for a ride together when it was fine? Well, to-day it's glorious. Just look out …”
“It's not a bad day,” she said, “but you go too fast, Prince. I remember that there was some suggestion of a ride at some future time—but surely not so soon as this? Might I not at least have expected some sort of notification, if your Highness will allow the word? You must allow that I can't ride like this about here.”
And she stood up to show her morning dress, which consisted of a loose gown of many-coloured silk and an open green-velvet jacket.
“No,” he said, “unfortunately you cannot. But I'll wait here while you both change. It's quite early….”
“Uncommonly early. But in the second place I am rather busy with my innocent studies, as you saw. I've got a lecture at eleven o'clock.”
“No,” he cried, “to-day you must not grind at algebra, Miss Imma; you must not play in the vacuum, as you put it! Look at the sun!… May I?…” And he went to the table and took up the notebook.
What he saw made his head swim. A fantastic hocus-pocus, a witches' sabbath of abbreviated symbols, written in a childish round hand which was the obvious result of Miss Spoelmann's peculiar way of holding her pen, covered thepages. There were Greek and Latin letters of various heights, crossed and cancelled, arranged above and below cross lines, covered by other lines, enclosed in round brackets, formulated in square brackets. Single letters, pushed forward like sentries, kept guard above the main bodies. Cabalistic signs, quite unintelligible to the lay mind, cast their arms round letters and ciphers, while fractions stood in front of them and ciphers and letters hovered round their tops and bottoms. Strange syllables, abbreviations of mysterious words, were scattered everywhere, and between the columns were written sentences and remarks in ordinary language, whose sense was equally beyond the normal intelligence, and conveyed no more to the reader than an incantation.
Klaus Heinrich looked at the slight form, which stood by him in the shimmering frock, becurtained by her dark hair, and in whose little head all this lived and meant something. He said, “Can you really waste a lovely morning over all this God-forsaken stuff?”
A glance of anger met him from her big eyes. Then she answered with a pout:
“Your Highness seems to wish to excuse yourself for the want of intelligence you recently displayed with regard to your own exalted calling.”
“No,” he said, “not so! I give you my word that I respect your studies most highly. I grant that they bother me, I could never understand anything of that sort. I also grant that to-day I feel some resentment against them, as they seem likely to prevent us from going for a ride.”
“Oh, I'm not the only one to interfere with your wish for exercise, Prince. There's the Countess too. She was writing—chronicling the experiences of her life, not for the world, but for private circulation, and I guarantee that the result will be a work which will teach you as well as me a good deal.”
“I am quite sure of it. But I am equally sure that the Countess is incapable of refusing a request from you.”
“And my father? There's the next stumbling-block. You know his temper. Will he consent?”
“He has consented. If you ride, you ride. Those were his words….”
“You have made sure of him beforehand, then? I'm really beginning to admire your circumspection. You have assumed the rôle of a Field Marshal, although you are not really a soldier, only a make-believe one, as you told us long ago. But there's yet one more obstacle, and that is decisive. It's going to rain.”
“No, that's a very weak one. The sun is shining….”
“It's going to rain. The air is much too soft. I made sure of it when we were in the Spa-Gardens before breakfast. Come and look at the barometer if you don't believe me. It's hanging in the hall….”
They went out into the tapestry hall, where a big weather-glass hung near the marble fireplace. The Countess went with them. Klaus Heinrich said: “It's gone up.”
“Your Highness is pleased to deceive yourself,” answered Miss Spoelmann. “The refraction misleads you.”
“That's beyond me.”
“The refraction misleads you.”
“I don't know what that is, Miss Spoelmann. It's the same as with the Adirondacks. I've not had much schooling, that's a necessary result of my kind of existence. You must make allowances for me.”
“Oh, I humbly beg pardon. I ought to have remembered that one must use ordinary words when talking to your Highness. You are standing crooked to the hand and that makes it look to you as if it had risen. If you would bring yourself to stand straight in front of the glass, you would see that the black has not risen above the gold hand, but has actually dropped a little below it.”
“I really believe you are right,” said Klaus Heinrich sadly.
“The atmospheric pressure there is higher than I thought!”
“It is lower than you thought.”
“But how about the falling quicksilver?”
“The quicksilver falls at low pressure, not at high, Royal Highness.”
“Now I'm absolutely lost.”
“I think, Prince, that you're exaggerating your ignorance by way of a joke, so as to hide what its extent really is. But as the atmospheric pressure is so high that the quicksilver drops, thus showing an absolute disregard for the laws of nature, let's go for a ride, Countess—shall we? I cannot assume the responsibility of sending the Prince back home again now that he has once come. He can wait in there till we're ready….”
When Imma Spoelmann and the Countess came back to the winter garden they were dressed for riding, Imma in a close-fitting black habit with breast-pockets and a three-cornered felt hat, the Countess in black cloth with a man's starched shirt and high hat. They went together down the steps, through the mosaic hall, and out into the open air, where between the colonnade and the big basin two grooms were waiting with the horses. But they had not yet mounted when with a loud barking, which was the expression of his wild excitement, Percival, the collie, prancing and leaping about, tore out of the Schloss and began a frenzied dance round the horses, who tossed their heads uneasily….
“I thought so,” said Imma, patting her favourite Fatma's head, “there was no hiding it from him. He found it all out at the last moment. Now he intends to come with us and make a fine to-do about it too. Shall we drop the whole thing, Prince?”
But although Klaus Heinrich understood that he might just as well have allowed the groom to ride in front with the silver trumpet, so far as calling public attention to their expedition was concerned, yet he said cheerfully that Percival must come too; he was a member of the family and must learn the neighbourhood like the rest.
“Well, where shall we go?” asked Imma as they rode at awalk down the chestnut avenue. She rode between Klaus Heinrich and the Countess. Percival barked in the van. The English groom, in cockaded hat and yellow boot-tops, rode at a respectful distance behind.
“The Court Kennels are fine,” answered Klaus Heinrich, “but it is a bit farther to the ‘Pheasantry,’ and we have time before lunch. I should like to show you the Schloss. I spent three years there as a boy. It was a seminary, you know, with tutors and other boys of my age. That's where I got to know my friend Ueberbein, Doctor Ueberbein, my favourite tutor.”
“You have a friend?” asked Miss Spoelmann, with some surprise, and gazed at him. “You must tell me about him some time. And you were educated at the ‘Pheasantry,’ were you? Then we must see it, because you're obviously set on it. Trot!” she said as they turned into a loose riding-path. “There lies your hermitage, Prince. There's plenty for the ducks to eat in your pond. Let's give a wide berth to the Spa-Gardens, if that does not take us far out of our way.”
Klaus Heinrich agreed, so they left the park and trotted across country to reach the high-road which led to their goal to the north-west. In the town gardens they were greeted with surprise by a few promenaders, whose greetings Klaus Heinrich acknowledged by raising his hand to his cap, Imma Spoelmann with a grave and rather embarrassed inclination of her dark head in the three-cornered hat. By now they had reached the open country, and were no longer likely to meet people. Now and then a peasant's cart rolled along the road, or a crouching bicyclist ploughed his way along it. But they turned aside from the road when they reached the 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 withpricked 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 consciousof 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 suddenlysetFatma 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 mightsay, 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-roadbetween 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 comprehensiveand 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, leavingpretty 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 someways 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 ImmaSpoelmanntook 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'shorses 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 ofthe 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 inthe 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 manœuvres, 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 theymounted 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 betweenus 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 amemory 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 nopath, 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 tennison 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 theconnexion 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 ofit 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 neverlost 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 backof 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?”