“The real one!” Her voice cracked with suppressed jubilation. “The real one, Ditlinde! For there's only one, or rather only one whom everybody knows, and he it is whom they are expecting at the Spa Hotel—the great Spoelmann, the giant Spoelmann, the colossus Samuel N. Spoelmann from America!”
“But, child, what's bringing him here?”
“Really, forgive me for saying so, Ditlinde, but what a question! His yacht or some big steamer is bringing him over the sea of course, he's on his holidays making a tour of Europe and has expressed his intention of drinking the Spa waters.”
“But is he ill, then?”
“Of course, Ditlinde; all people of his kind are ill, that's part of the business.”
“Strange,” said Klaus Heinrich.
“Yes, Grand Ducal Highness, it is remarkable. His kind of existence must bring that with it. For there's no doubt it's a trying existence, and not at all a comfortable one, and must wear the body out quicker than an ordinary man's life would. Most suffer in the stomach, but Spoelmann suffers from stone as everybody knows.”
“Stone, does he?”
“Of course, Ditlinde, you must have heard it and forgotten it. He has stone in the kidneys, if you will forgive me the horrid expression—a serious, trying illness, and I'm sure he can't get the slightest pleasure from his frantic wealth.”
“But how in the world has he pitched upon our waters?”