“Quite true, quite true,” said Herr von Schröder. He sighed and stroked thoughtfully the swansdown trimming of his hat. The two men were sitting, half turned towards each other, on a raised window seat in a roomy niche, past which a narrow stone corridor ran outside, a kind of gallery, through the pointed arches of which peeps of the town could be seen. Herr von Schröder went on:
“You answer me, Baron; one would think you were contradicting me, and yet your words show more incredulity and bitterness than my own.”
Herr von Knobelsdorff said nothing, but made a vague gesture of assent.
“It may be so,” said the Finance Minister, and nodded gloomily at his hat. “Your Excellency may be quite right. Perhaps we are all blameworthy, we and our forefathers too. But it ought to have been stopped. For consider, Baron; ten years ago an opportunity offered itself of putting the finances of the Court on a sound footing, on a better footing anyhow, if you like. It was lost. We understand each other. The Grand Duke, attractive man that he is, had it then in his power to clear things up by a marriage which from a sound point of view might have been called dazzling. Instead of that … speaking not for myself, of course, but I shall never forget the disgust on everybody's faces when they mentioned the amount of the dowry…”
“The Grand Duchess,” said Herr von Knobelsdorff, and the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes disappeared almost entirely, “is one of the handsomest women I have ever seen.”
“That is an answer one would expect of your Excellency. It's an æsthetic answer, an answer which would have held quite as good if his Royal Highness's choice, like his brother Lambert's, had fallen on a member of the royal ballet.”
“Oh, there was no danger of that. The Prince's taste is a fastidious one, as he has shown. He has always shown in his wants the antithesis to that want of taste which Prince Lambert has shown all his life. It was a long time before he made up his mind to marry. Everybody had given up all hope of a direct heir to the throne. They were resigned for better or worse to Prince Lambert, whose … unsuitability to be heir to the throne we need not discuss. Then, a few weeks after he had succeeded, Johann Albrecht met Princess Dorothea, cried, “This one or none!” and the Grand Duchy had its sovereign lady. Your Excellency mentioned the thoughtful looks which were exchanged when the figures of the dowry were published,—you did not mention the jubilation which at the same time prevailed. A poor princess, to be sure. But is beauty, such beauty, a power of happiness or not? Never shall I forget her entry! Her first smile, as it lighted on the gazing crowds, won their love. Your Excellency must allow me to profess once more my belief in the idealism of the people. The people want to see their best, their highest, their dream, what stands for their soul, represented in their princes—not their money bags. There are others to represent those….”
“That's just what there are not; just what we have not got.”
“The more's the pity, then. The main point is, Dorothea has presented us with an Heir Apparent.”
“To whom may Heaven grant some idea of figures!”