One group of vivacious ladies discussed quite frankly with Marguerite the relative advantages of a husband of intellectual genius as compared with one of a high degree of royal blood. Some contended that the added prospect of superior intelligence in the children would offset the lowering of their degree of Hohenzollern blood. The others argued quite as persistently that the "blood" was the better investment.
Through such conversation I learned of the two clans within the Royal House. The one prided themselves wholly in the high degree of their Hohenzollern blood; the other, styling themselves "Royal Intellectuals" because of a greater proportion of outside blood lines, were quite as proud of the fact that, while possessed of sufficient royal blood to be in "the divinity," they inherited supposedly greater intelligence from their mundane ancestors. This latter group, to make good their claims, made a great show of intellectuality, and cultivated most persistently a dilletante dabbling into all sorts of scientific and artistic matters.
Because of Marguerite's high credit in Royal blood she was courted by "purists" by whom I was only tolerated on her account. On the other hand, the "intellectuals" considered me as a great asset for their cause and glorified particularly in the prospects of marriage of an outside scientist to an eighty-degree Hohenzollern princess. This rivalry of the clans of Royal Society made us much sought after and I was flooded with invitations.
It did not take me long to discover, however, that the reason for my popularity was not altogether a matter of respect for my intellectual genius. I had at first been inclined to accept all invitations, innocently supposing that I was being fêted as an honorary guest. But my social secretary advised against this; and, when he began bringing me checks to sign, I realized that the social privileges of Royal Society included the honour of paying the bills for one's own entertainment.
I had already arranged with my banker that a fourth of my income be turned over to Marguerite until her marriage, for she was without income of her own, and it was upon my petition that she had been restored to the Royal Level. At my banker's suggestion I had also made over ten thousand marks a month to the Countess, under whose motherly wing Marguerite was being sheltered. I therefore soon discovered that my income of a million marks a year would be absorbed quite easily by Royal Society. The entire system appeared to me rather sordid, but such matters were arranged by bankers and secretaries and the principals were supposed to be quite innocent of any knowledge of, or concern for, the details.
The Countess Luise, who was permitted to entertain so lavishly at my expense, was playing for the favour of both of the opposing social clans. Possessing a high degree of Hohenzollern blood she stood well with the purists. But her income was not all that could be desired, so she had adroitly discovered in her only son a touch of intellectual genius, and the young man quite dutifully had become a maker of picture plots, hoping by this distinction to win as a wife one of the daughters of some wealthy intellectual interloper. At first I had feared the Countess had designs upon Marguerite as a wife for her son, but as Marguerite had no income of her own I saw that in this I was mistaken, and I developed a feeling of genuine friendliness for the plump and cordial Countess.
"Do you know what I was reading last night?" I remarked one evening, as I chatted with Marguerite and her chaperone.
"Some work on obesity, I hope," sparkled the Countess. Like many of the House of Hohenzollern, among whom there was no weight control, she carried a surplus of adipose tissue not altogether consistent with beauty.
"No, indeed," I said gravely. "Nothing about your material being, but a treatise upon your spiritual nature. I was reading an old school book that I found among my forgotten relics--a book about the Divinity of the House of Hohenzollern."
"Oh, how jolly!" chuckled the Countess. "How very funny that I never thought before that you, Herr von Armstadt, were once taught all those delightful fables."