Part 33

"We agreed?"

"No, don't say that you've forgotten!" he said pleadingly. "Didn't I promise to show you the country round? Weren't we going for a ride together when it was fine? Well, to-day it's glorious. Just look out ..."

"It's not a bad day," she said, "but you go too fast, Prince. I remember that there was some suggestion of a ride at some future time--but surely not so soon as this? Might I not at least have expected some sort of notification, if your Highness will allow the word? You must allow that I can't ride like this about here."

And she stood up to show her morning dress, which consisted of a loose gown of many-coloured silk and an open green-velvet jacket.

"No," he said, "unfortunately you cannot. But I'll wait here while you both change. It's quite early...."

"Uncommonly early. But in the second place I am rather busy with my innocent studies, as you saw. I've got a lecture at eleven o'clock."

"No," he cried, "to-day you must not grind at algebra, Miss Imma; you must not play in the vacuum, as you put it! Look at the sun!... May I?..." And he went to the table and took up the notebook.

What he saw made his head swim. A fantastic hocus-pocus, a witches' sabbath of abbreviated symbols, written in a childish round hand which was the obvious result of Miss Spoelmann's peculiar way of holding her pen, covered the pages. There were Greek and Latin letters of various heights, crossed and cancelled, arranged above and below cross lines, covered by other lines, enclosed in round brackets, formulated in square brackets. Single letters, pushed forward like sentries, kept guard above the main bodies. Cabalistic signs, quite unintelligible to the lay mind, cast their arms round letters and ciphers, while fractions stood in front of them and ciphers and letters hovered round their tops and bottoms. Strange syllables, abbreviations of mysterious words, were scattered everywhere, and between the columns were written sentences and remarks in ordinary language, whose sense was equally beyond the normal 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."