Part 29

She stopped.

Klaus Heinrich sat upright and braced up in his wicker chair opposite her and looked at her. Before leaving his rectilineal room, he had dressed himself with his valet Neumann's help with all possible care, as his life in the public eye required. His parting ran from over his left eye, straight up to the crown of his head, without a hair sticking up, and his hair was brushed up into a crest off the right side of his forehead. There he sat in his undress uniform, whose high collar and close fit helped him to maintain a composed attitude, the silver epaulettes of a major on his narrow shoulders, leaning slightly but not comfortably forward, collected, calm, with one foot slightly advanced, and with his right hand above his left on his sword-hilt. His young face looked slightly weary from the unreality, the loneliness, strictness, and difficulty of his life; he sat looking at the Countess with a friendly, clear, but composed expression in his eyes.

She stopped. Disenchantment and disgust showed themselves in her features, and, while something like hate towards Klaus Heinrich flamed up in her tired grey eyes, she blushed in the strangest of ways, for one half of her face turned red, the other white. Dropping her eyelids she answered: "I have been living with the Spoelmanns for three years, Royal Highness."

Percival darted forward. Dancing, springing, and wagging his tail he trotted towards his mistress--for Imma Spoelmann had come in--raised himself in a dignified way on his hind legs and laid his fore paws in greeting on her breast. His jaws were wide open, and his red tongue hung out between his ivory-white teeth. He looked like a heraldic supporter as he stood there before her.

She wore a wonderful dress of brick-red silk with loose hanging sleeves, and the breast covered with heavy gold embroidery. A big egg-shaped jewel on a pearl necklace lay on her bare neck, the skin of which was the colour of smoked meerschaum. Her blue-black hair was parted on one side and coiled, though a few smooth wisps tended to fall on her forehead. Holding Percival's head in her two narrow, ringless little hands, she looked into his face, saying, "Well, well, my friend. What a welcome! We are glad to see each other--we hated being parted, didn't we? Now go back and lie down." And she put his paws off the gold embroidery on her breast, and set him on his four paws again.

"Oh, Prince," she said. "Welcome to Delphinenort. You hate breaking your promise, I can see. I'm coming to sit next you. They'll tell us when tea is ready.... It's against all the rules, I know, for me to have kept you waiting. But my father sent for me--and besides you had somebody to entertain you." Her bright eyes passed from Klaus Heinrich to the Countess and back in a rather hesitating way.

"That's quite true," he said. And then he asked how Mr. Spoelmann was, and received a fairly reassuring answer. Mr. Spoelmann would have the pleasure of making Klaus Heinrich's acquaintance at tea-time, he begged to be excused till then.... What a lovely pair of horses Klaus Heinrich had in his brougham! And then they talked about their horses, about Klaus Heinrich's good-tempered brown Florian from the Hollerbrunn stud, about Miss Spoelmann's Arabian cream, the mare Fatma which had been given to Mr. Spoelmann by an oriental prince, about her fast Hungarian chestnuts, which she drove four-in-hand.

"Do you know the country round?" asked Klaus Heinrich. "Have you hunted with the Royal pack? Have you been to the 'Pheasantry'? There are lots of lovely excursions."

No, Miss Spoelmann was not at all clever in finding out new roads, and the Countess--well, her whole nature was unenterprising, so they always chose the same road, in the Town Gardens, for their ride. It was boring, perhaps, but Miss Spoelmann was not on the whole so blasé as to need constant change and adventures. Then he said that they must go together some time to a meet of the hounds or to the "Pheasantry," whereupon she pursed her lips and said that that was an idea which might be discussed some time in the future. Then the major-domo came in and gravely announced that tea was ready.

They went through the tapestry hall with the marble fireplace, conducted by the strutting butler, accompanied by the dancing Percy, and followed by Countess Löwenjoul.

"Has the Countess been letting her tongue run away with her?" asked Imma en route, without any particular lowering of her voice.

Klaus Heinrich started and looked at the floor. "But she can hear us!" he said softly.

"No, she doesn't hear us," answered Imma. "I can read her face. When she holds her head crooked like that and blinks her eyes it means that she is wandering and deep in her thoughts. Did she let her tongue run away with her?"

"For a minute or two," said Klaus Heinrich. "I got the impression that the Countess 'let herself go' every now and then."

"She has had a lot of trouble." And Imma looked at him with the same big searching dark eyes with which she had scanned him in the Dorothea Hospital. "I'll tell you all about it another time. It's a long story."

"Yes," he said. "Some other time. Next time. On our ride perhaps."

"On our ride?"

"Yes, on our ride to the meet, or to the 'Pheasantry.'"

"Oh, I forgot your preciseness, Prince, in the matter of appointments. Very well, on our ride. We go down here."

They found themselves at the back of the Schloss. Carpeted steps led from a gallery hung with big pictures, down into the white-and-gold garden room, behind the glass door of which lay the terrace. Everything--the big crystal lustres, which hung from the centre of the high, white-festooned ceiling, the regularly arranged arm-chairs with gilt frames and fancy upholstering, the heavy white silk curtains, the elaborate clock and the vases and gilt lamps on the white marble chimneypiece in front of the tall looking-glass, the massive, lion-footed gilt candelabra which towered on either side of the entrance--everything reminded Klaus Heinrich of the Old Schloss, of the Representation Chamber, in which he had played his part from his youth up; only that the candles here were shams, with yellow electric bulbs instead of wicks, and that everything of the Spoelmanns' was new and smart in Schloss Delphinenort. A swan's-down footman was putting the last touch to the tea-table in a corner of the room; Klaus Heinrich noticed the electric kettle about which he had read in the Courier.

"Has Mr. Spoelmann been told?" asked the daughter of the house.... The butler bowed. "Then there's nothing," she said quickly and half mockingly, "to prevent us from taking our places and beginning without him. Come, Countess! I advise you, Prince, to unbuckle your sword, unless there are reasons unknown to me for your not doing so...."

"Thanks," said Klaus Heinrich, "no, there is no reason why I shouldn't." And he was angry with himself for not being smart enough to think of a more adroit answer.

The footman took his sword, and carried it off. They took their seats at the tea-table with the help of the butler, who held the backs and pushed the chairs under them. Then he retired to the top of the steps, where he remained in an elegant attitude.

"I must tell you, Prince," said Miss Spoelmann, pouring the water into the pot, "that my father won't drink any tea which I have not made with my own hands. He distrusts all tea which is handed round ready-made in cups. That is barred with us. You'll have to put up with it."

"Oh, I like it much better like this," said Klaus Heinrich, "it's much more comfortable and free-and-easy at a family tea like this...." He broke off, and wondered why as he spoke these words a side-glance of hatred lighted on him from the eyes of Countess Löwenjoul. "And your course of study?" he asked. "May I ask about it? It's mathematics, I know. Don't you find it too much? Isn't it terribly brain-racking?"

"Absolutely not," she said. "It's just splendid; it's like playing in the breezes, so to speak, or rather out of the breezes, in a dust-free atmosphere. It's as cool there as in the Adirondacks."

"The what?"

"The Adirondacks. That's geography, Prince. Mountains over in the States, with lovely snowfields. We have a country cottage there, where we go in May. In summer we used to go to the sea-side."