“Herr Professor!” he remarked. “I beg you.”
Slightly bewildered, Birnier rose, too, glass in hand. [pg 47] Wheeling with military precision zu Pfeiffer raised his glass to the great portrait on the wall.
“Ihre Hochheit!”
Politely Birnier followed suit, his democratic ideas slightly astonished at the veneration of the kingly office; almost, he reflected, as curious as the native superstition of the King-God. Then zu Pfeiffer turned to the left and lifting his glass to the portrait in the ivory frame, drank silently.
“I was wondering, Professor,” remarked he, as he resumed his seat without explanation, “from what college—you call it?—you come?”
“Harvard,” said Birnier, rather amused and noticing that as a true connoisseur, zu Pfeiffer refrained from smoking while drinking his port.
“I have met many of the Harvard men—at Washington.”
“Ah, you know Washington?”
“Yes, I was there nearly two years.”
Zu Pfeiffer drained his port, selected a cigar, lighted it and gazed abstractedly towards the ivory frame. The lips softened and he smiled gently.