And they looked laughingly at their hands, his right and her left, as they lay next each other on the gilt table.
“Or,” went on Imma, “the loan is procured by negotiation, and it is some big bank, or group of banks, to which the State …”
“Wait!” he said softly. “Wait, Imma, and answer me one question. Aren't you missing the main point? Are you making progress? What about the disenchantment and embarrassment, dear little Imma? Have you now just one spark of confidence in me?” His lips asked the question close to her hair, from which a delicate fragrance arose, and she held her dark head still and bent over the book, though she did not answer his question frankly.
“But must it be a bank or group of banks?” she pondered. “There's nothing about it there; I can't think it would be necessary in practice.”
She spoke gravely and deliberately on these occasions, for she too for her part had to grapple with the mental exercises which Klaus Heinrich had successfully managed after the conversation with Herr von Knobelsdorff. And when some weeks later he repeated his question, whether she would not like to go to the Court Ball, and told her of the ceremonial conditions which had been sanctioned for this occasion, behold, she replied that she would like to, and would go next day with Countess Löwenjoul and leave cards on the widowed Countess Trümmerhauff.
This year the Court Ball took place earlier than usual; at the end of November—an arrangement which was said to be due to the wishes of the Grand Ducal Party. Herr von Bühl zu Bühl bitterly bewailed this precipitation, which obliged him and his subordinates to cancel the arrangements for the most important Court function, especially the improvements which the Gala Rooms in the Old Schloss so much needed. But the wish of the particular member of the Grand Ducal family had had the support of Herr von Knobelsdorff, and the Court Marshal had to give way. But it happened thus that people's minds scarcely had time to prepare themselves sufficiently for what really was the event of the evening, in comparison with which the unusual date seemed as nothing. Indeed, when the Courier published in leaded type the news of the leaving of cards and the invitation—not without expressing in rather smaller type and in glowing words its satisfaction thereat, and welcoming Spoelmann's daughter to the Court—the important evening was already close at hand, and before tongues could get fairly wagging the whole thing was a completed reality.
Never had more envy attached to the five hundred favoured ones whose names stood on the Court Ball list, never had the bourgeois more eagerly devoured the account in the Courier—those dazzling columns which were written every year by a nobleman who had degenerated through drink, and which were such glorious reading that one felt they gave one a peep into Fairyland, while as a matter of fact the ball in the Old Schloss went off quite modestly and soberly. But the report only extended to the supper, including the French menu, and everything that came later, especially all the delicate significance of the great occasion, were necessarily left to be reported by word of mouth.
The ladies, in a huge olive-coloured motor, had pulled up in front of the Albrechtstor at the Old Schloss fairly punctually, though not so punctually that Herr von Bühl zu Bühl had not had time to get anxious. From a quarter-past seven onwards he had waited in full uniform, covered with orders down to his waist, with a bright brown toupée and his gold pince-nez on his nose, in the middle of the armour-hung Knights' Hall where the Grand Ducal family and the chief officials were collected; standing now on one foot, then on the other, and every now and then dispatching a footman to the ballroom to find out whether Miss Spoelmann had not yet come. He thought of all sorts of unheard-of possibilities. If this Queen of Sheba came too late—and what might one not expect of a girl who had walked right through the guard?—the entry of the Grand Ducal cortège would have to be delayed, and the Court would have to wait for her, for she simply must be introduced first, and it was out of the question that she should enter the ballroom after the Grand Duke.
But thank heaven! a bare minute before half-past seven she arrived with her Countess; and it made a great sensation when the Chamberlains who received them arranged them next the diplomats, and so in front of the nobility, the Court ladies, the Ministers, the Generals, the Presidents of Chambers, and all the Court world. Aide-de-camp von Platow had fetched the Grand Duke from his rooms. Albrecht, in hussar uniform, had greeted the members of his House with down-cast eyes in the Knights' Hall, had offered his arm to Aunt Catherine, and then, after Herr von Bühl had tapped three times with his staff on the parquet in the open doors, the procession of the Court into the ballroom had begun.
Eye-witnesses asserted later that the general inattention had verged on the scandalous during the perambulation of the Grand Duke. As Albrecht reached successive spots with his dignified aunt, a hasty bowing and billowing without the fitting composure ensued, but otherwise all faces were turned to one point only in the ball, all eyes directed with burning curiosity on this point alone…. She who stood yonder had had enemies in the hall, at least among the women, the female Trümmerhauffs, Prenzlaus, Wehrzahns, and Platows, who were plying their fans here, and sharp and cold female glances had scrutinized her. But whether her position was now too well established for criticism to venture to assail her, or her personality itself had conquered the secret opposition—all had declared with one voice that Imma Spoelmann was as fine as the daughter of the King of the Mountains.