When he proceeded—it was the middle of June—to pay another afternoon visit to the Spoelmanns, he found Imma in a very mocking mood, and her mode of expression was unusually Scriptural and solemn. Mr. Spoelmann also was present this time, and although his presence robbed Klaus Heinrich of the tête-à-tête he so much desired with the daughter, yet it helped him in a quite unexpected way to bear up against the wounds which Imma's sharpness gave him; for Samuel Spoelmann was friendly, and almost affectionate towards him.
They had tea on the terrace, sitting in basket-chairs of an ultra-modern shape, with the breezes from the flower-garden softly fanning them. The master of the house lay under a green-silk, fur-lined, and parrot-embroidered coverlet, stretched by the table on a cane couch fitted with silk cushions. He had left his bed for the sake of the mild air, but his cheeks to-day were not inflamed, but of a sallow paleness, and his eyes were muddy; his chin protruded sharply, his prominent nose looked longer than ever, and his tone was not cross, as usual, but sad—a bad sign. By his head sat Doctor Watercloose with his continual soft smile.
“Hullo, young Prince …” said Mr. Spoelmann in a tired tone, and answered the other's inquiry as to his health merely with half a grunt. Imma, in a shimmering dress with a high waist and green-velvet bolero, poured water into the pot out of the electric kettle. She congratulated the Prince with a pout on his personal prowess at the rifle festival. She had, she said, as she wagged her head backwards and forwards, “read an account of it in the daily press with deep satisfaction,” and had read aloud the description of his exploits as marksman to the Countess. The latter was sitting bolt upright in her tight brown dress at the table, and handling her spoon gracefully, without in any way letting herself go. It was Mr. Spoelmann who did the talking this time. He did it, as has been said, in a soft, sad way, the result of all his suffering.
He recounted an occurrence, an experience of years gone by, which was obviously still fresh to him, and which always brought him new suffering on the days when his health was bad. He recounted the short and simple story twice, with even greater self-torture the second time than the first. He had wished to make one of his endowments—not one of the first rank, but a pretty considerable one—he had given a big philanthropic institute in the United States to understand in writing that he wished to devote a million in railway bonds to the furtherance of their noble work—safe paper of the South Pacific Railway, said Mr. Spoelmann, and slapped the palm of his hand, as if to show the paper. But what had the philanthropic institute done? It had refused the gift, rejected it—adding in so many words that it preferred to go without the support of questionable and ill-gotten plunder. They had actually done that. Mr. Spoelmann's lips quivered as he recounted it, the first time no less than the second, and, longing for comfort and expressions of disapproval, he looked round the table with his little, close-set, metallic eyes.
“That was not philanthropic of the philanthropic institute,” said Klaus Heinrich. “No, it certainly was not.” And the shake of his head was so decided, his disgust and sympathy so obvious, that Mr. Spoelmann cheered up a little and declared that it was lovely outside to-day and the trees down yonder smelt nice. Indeed, he took the first opportunity of showing his young guest his appreciation and satisfaction in the clearest manner. For Klaus Heinrich had caught a chill with this summer's constant alternations between warm weather and cooling showers and hailstorms. His neck was swollen, his throat felt sore when he swallowed; and as his lofty calling and a certain amount of molly-coddling of his person, in request as it was for exhibition, had necessarily made him rather delicate, he could not help alluding to it and complaining of the pain in his neck.
“You must have wet compresses,” said Mr. Spoelmann. “Have you any oil-silk?” Klaus Heinrich had none. Then Mr. Spoelmann threw off the parrot coverlet, stood up, and went inside the Schloss. He would not answer any questions, insisted on going, and went. When he had gone, the others asked each other what he intended to do, and Doctor Watercloose, fearing lest an attack of pain had seized his patient, hurried after him. But when Mr. Spoelmann returned he had in his hand a piece of oil-silk, whose existence in some drawer he had remembered: a rather creased piece, which he handed to the Prince with precise directions how to use it, so as to get the most good out of it. Klaus Heinrich thanked him delightedly, and Mr. Spoelmann got contentedly back on to his couch. This time he stayed there till the end of tea, when he proposed a general walk round the park, in the following order: Mr. Spoelmann in his soft slippers between Imma and Klaus Heinrich, while Countess Löwenjoul followed at a short distance with Dr. Watercloose.
When the Prince took leave for the day, Imma Spoelmann made some sharp remark about his neck and the wet compresses, adjured him half-mockingly to nurse himself and to take the utmost care of his sacred person. But although Klaus Heinrich had no adequate repartee ready for her—she did not expect or want one—yet it was in a fairly cheerful frame of mind that he mounted his dog-cart; for the piece of creased oil-silk in the back pocket of his uniform coat seemed to him, though unconsciously, a pledge of a happy future.
However that might be, for the present his struggle was only beginning. It was the struggle for Imma Spoelmann's faith, the struggle to make her so far trust him as to be capable of deciding to leave the clear and frosty sphere wherein she had been wont to play, to descend from the realms of algebra and conversational ridicule, and to venture with him into the untrodden zone, that warmer, more fragrant, more fruitful zone to which he showed her the way. For she was overpoweringly shy of making any such decision.
Next time he was alone with her, or as good as alone, because Countess Löwenjoul was the third, it was a cool, over-cast morning, after a break in the weather the night before. They rode along the meadow-woods, Klaus Heinrich in high boots, with the crook of his crop suspended between the buttons of his grey cloak. The sluices at the wooden bridge up stream were shut, the bed of the stream lay empty and stony. Percival, whose first outburst had died down, jumped here and there or trotted sideways, dog-fashion, in front of the horses. The Countess, on Isabeau, kept her head on one side and smiled. Klaus Heinrich was saying: “I'm always thinking, night and day, about something which must have been a dream. I lie at night and can hear Florian over in the stall snuffling, it's so quiet. And then I think, for certain it was no dream. But when I see you as I do to-day, and did the other day at tea, I cannot possibly think it anything more substantial.”
She replied: “I must ask you to explain yourself, Sire.”