As they drove by a handsome villa, whose shutters were all barred, Pranken suggested that Herr Sonnenkamp should buy it in order to sell it again at a low price to the Cabinetsräthin, who, as he knew, had long cherished a strong desire for such a residence. Sonnenkamp consented, on the condition that it would accomplish his object. It would be one of the levers, Pranken assured him, though not the only one.
Although the two were alone together, neither of them, singularly enough, mentioned their plan by name, till Sonnenkamp said that the Cabinetsräthin had told him a title of nobility was to be conferred on the wine-merchant, and that he wished he might get one first; for he thought he had a better right to the distinction, though he was not going to marry his daughter to a dying man, but rather to the freshest and liveliest of noblemen.
Pranken smiled his thanks, but replied that this priority of the Wine-count,—it could hardly be called precedence—was rather advantageous than otherwise, as it made the conferring of titles appear not so much a matter of private negotiation.
"Your difficulties are greater than those of the Wine-count," he added: "for the Prince-cardinal stayed in his house on his last circuit, so that the Wine-count has on his side the church party, which is as discreet as it is powerful, while you, I would say we, have no party. So much the better; the victory will be all our own."
They reached the capital.
The Cabinetsräthin was delighted, and expressed to Pranken, whom she constantly treated as the head, in fact the president of the party, her great pleasure that a watering-place acquaintance should have ripened into a new friendship.
Pranken insinuatingly remarked that they might become neighbors too.
The country-house was glowingly described, and the fact cautiously yet emphatically stated, that Sonnenkamp had already bought the place for the sake of inducing some noble friends to settle there by letting them have it at a moderate sum.
The lady was delighted; she knew the house very well, it having once belonged to friends of hers whom she had been in the habit of visiting there. She quite envied the people who should live in such a home and have such noble neighbors. She had told her husband, she said, that it was a disgrace to the State that such a man as Herr Sonnenkamp should have no title.
Having thus prepared the way, Pranken disclosed his plan to the Cabinetsräthin, who assured him it could not but be a most desirable thing for society, to have a man of Herr Sonnenkamp's importance admitted to a higher rank. Sonnenkamp assumed an air of great shyness and modesty. A maiden receiving her first offer, which she was quite prepared for, could not have looked more bashfully on the ground; he actually blushed.