"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?"

"Why, Ditlinde, that's simple. The waters are good, they're excellent; especially the Ditlinde spring, with its lithium or whatever they call it, is admirable against gout and stone, and only waiting to be properly known and valued throughout the world. But a man like Spoelmann, you can imagine, a man like that is above names and trade-puffs, and follows his own kind. And so he has discovered our waters--or his physician has recommended them to him, it may be that, and bought it in the bottle, and it has done him good, and now he may think that it must do him still more good if he drinks it on the spot."

They all kept silence.

"Great heavens, Albrecht," said Ditlinde at last, "whatever one thinks of Spoelmann and his kind--and I'm not going to commit myself to an opinion, of that you may be sure--but don't you think that the man's visit to the Spa may be very useful?"

The Grand Duke turned his head with his stiff and refined smile.

"Ask Fraulein von Isenschnibbe," he answered. "She has doubtless already considered the question from that point of view."

"If your Royal Highness asks me ... enormously useful! Immeasurably, incalculably useful--that's obvious! The directors are in the seventh heaven, they're getting ready to decorate and illuminate the Spa Hotel!

What a recommendation, what an attraction for strangers! Will your Royal Highness just consider--the man is a curiosity! Your Grand Ducal Highness spoke just now of 'his kind'--but there are none of 'his kind'--at most, only a couple. He's a Leviathan, a Croesus! People will come from miles away to see a being who has about half a million a day to spend!"

"Gracious!" said Ditlinde, taken aback. "And there's dear Philipp worrying about his peat beds."

"The first scene," the Fraulein went on, "begins with two Americans hanging about the Exchange for the last couple of days. Who are they?

They are said to be journalists, reporters, for two big New York papers.

They have preceded the Leviathan, and are telegraphing to their papers preliminary descriptions of the scenery. When he has got here they will telegraph every step he takes--just as the _Courier_ and the _Advertiser_ report about your Royal Highness...."

Albrecht bowed his thanks with eyes downcast and underlip protruded.

"He has appropriated the Prince's suite in the Spa Hotel," said Jettchen, "as provisional lodgings."

"For himself alone?" asked Ditlinde.

"Oh no, Ditlinde, do you suppose he'd be coming alone? There isn't any precise information about his suite and staff, but it's quite certain that his daughter and his physician-in-ordinary are coming with him."

"It annoys me, Jettchen, to hear you talking about a 'physician-in-ordinary' and the journalists, too, and the Prince's suite to boot. He's not a king, after all."

"A railway king, so far as I know," remarked Albrecht quietly with eyes downcast.

"Not only, nor even particularly, a railway king, Royal Highness, according to what I hear. Over in America they have those great business concerns called Trusts, as your Royal Highness knows--the Steel Trust for instance, the Sugar Trust, the Petroleum Trust, the Coal, Meat, and Tobacco Trusts, and goodness knows how many more, and Samuel N.

Spoelmann has a finger in nearly all these trusts, and is chief shareholder in them, and managing director--that's what I believe they call them--so his business must be what is called over here a 'Mixed Goods Business.'"

"A nice sort of business," said Ditlinde, "it must be a nice sort of business! For you can't persuade me, dear Jettchen, that honest work can make a man into a Leviathan and a Croesus. I am convinced that his riches are steeped in the blood of widows and orphans. What do you think, Albrecht?"

"I hope so, Ditlinde, I hope so, for your own and your husband's comfort."

"May be so," explained Jettchen, "yet Spoelmann--our Samuel N.

Spoelmann--is hardly responsible for it, for he is really nothing but an heir, and may quite well not have had any particular taste for his business. It was his father who really made the pile, I've read all about it, and may say that I really know the general facts. His father was a German--simply an adventurer who crossed the seas and became gold-digger. And he was lucky and made a little money through gold-finds--or rather quite a decent amount of money--and began to speculate in petroleum and steel and railways, and then in every sort of thing, and kept growing richer and richer, and when he died everything was already in full swing, and his son Samuel, who inherited the Croesus' firm, really had nothing to do but to collect the princely dividends and keep growing richer and richer till he beat all records.

That's the way things have gone."

"And he has a daughter, has he, Jettchen? What's she like?"

"Yes, Ditlinde, his wife is dead, but he has a daughter, Miss Spoelmann, and he's bringing her with him. She's a wonderful girl from all I've read about her. He himself is a bit of a mixture, for his father married a wife from the South--Creole blood, the daughter of a German father and native mother. But Samuel in his turn married a German-American of half-English blood, and their daughter is now Miss Spoelmann."

"Gracious, Jettchen, she's a creature of many colours!"

"You may well say so, Ditlinde, and she's clever, so I've heard; she studies like a man--algebra, and puzzling things of that sort."

"Hm, that too doesn't attract me much."

"But now comes the cream of the business, Ditlinde, for Miss Spoelmann has a lady-companion, and that lady-companion is a countess, a real genuine countess, who dances attendance on her."

"Gracious!" said Ditlinde, "she ought to be ashamed of herself. No, Jettchen, my mind is made up. I'm not going to bother myself about Spoelmann. I'm going to let him drink his waters and go, with his countess and his algebraical daughter, and am not going so much as to turn my head to look at him. He and his riches make no impression on me.

What do you think, Klaus Heinrich?"

Klaus Heinrich looked past Jettchen's head at the bright window.

"Impression?" he said.... "No, riches make no impression on me, I think--I mean, riches in the ordinary way. But it seems to me that it depends ... it depends, I think, on the standard. We too have one or two rich people in the town here--Soap-boiler Unschlitt must be a millionaire.... I often see him in his carriage. He's dreadfully fat and common. But when a man is quite ill and lonely from mere riches ...

Maybe ..."

"An uncomfortable sort of man anyhow," said Ditlinde, and the subject of the Spoelmanns gradually dropped. The conversation turned on family matters, the "Hohenried" property, and the approaching season. Shortly before seven o'clock the Grand Duke sent for his carriage. Prince Klaus Heinrich was going too, so they all got up and said good-bye. But while the brothers were being helped into their coats in the hall, Albrecht said: "I should be obliged, Klaus Heinrich, if you would send your coachman home and would give me the pleasure of your company for a quarter of an hour longer. I've got a matter of some importance to discuss with you--I might come with you to the Hermitage, but I can't bear the evening air."

Klaus Heinrich clapped his heels together as he answered: "No, Albrecht, you mustn't think of it! I'll drive to the Schloss with you if you like.

I am of course at your disposal."

This was the prelude to a remarkable conversation between the young princes, the upshot of which was published a few days later in the _Advertiser_ and received with general approval.

The Prince accompanied the Grand Duke to the Schloss, through the Albrechtstor, up broad stone steps, through corridors where naked gas lamps were burning, and silent ante-rooms, between lackeys into Albrecht's "closet," where old Prahl had lighted the two bronze oil-lamps on the mantelpiece. Albrecht had taken over his father's work-room--it had always been the work-room of the reigning sovereigns, and lay on the first floor between an aide-de-camp's room and the dining-room in daily use facing the Albrechtsplatz, which the princes had always overlooked and watched from their writing-table. It was an exceptionally unhomely and repellent room, small, with cracked ceiling-paintings, red silk and gold-bordered carpet, and three windows reaching to the ground, through which the draught blew keenly and before which the claret-coloured curtains with their elaborate fringes were drawn. It had a false chimney-piece in French Empire taste, in front of which a semicircle of little modern quilted plush chairs without arms were arranged, and a hideously decorated white stove, which gave out a great heat. Two big quilted sofas stood opposite each other by the walls, and in front of one stood a square book-table with a red plush cover. Between the windows two narrow gold-framed mirrors with marble ledges reached up to the ceiling, the right hand one of which bore a fairly cheerful alabaster group, the other a water bottle and medicine gla.s.ses. The writing-desk, an old piece made of rose-wood with a roll-top and metal clasps, stood clear in the middle of the room on the red carpet. An antique stared down with its dead eyes from a pedestal in one corner of the room.

"What I have to suggest to you," said Albrecht--he was standing at the writing-table, unconsciously toying with a paper-knife, a silly thing like a cavalry-sabre with a grotesque handle, "is directly connected with our conversation this afternoon. I may begin by saying that I discussed the matter thoroughly with k.n.o.belsdorff this summer at Hollerbrunn. He agrees, and if you do too, as I don't doubt you will, I can carry out my intention at once."

"Please let's hear it, Albrecht," said Klaus Heinrich, who was standing at attention in a military att.i.tude by the sofa table.

"My health," continued the Grand Duke, "has been getting worse and worse lately."

"I'm very sorry, Albrecht--Hollerbrunn didn't agree with you, then?"

"Thanks, no, I'm in a bad way, and my health is showing itself increasingly unequal to the demands made upon it. When I say 'demands,'

I mean chiefly the duties of a ceremonial and representative nature which are inseparable from my position--and that's the bond of connexion with the conversation we had just now at Ditlinde's. The performance of these duties may be a happiness when a contact with the people, a relationship, a beating of hearts in unison exists. To me it is a torture, and the falseness of my role wearies me to such a degree that I must consider what measures I can take to counteract it. In this--so far as the bodily part of me is concerned--I am at one with my doctors, who entirely agree with my proposal--so listen to me. I'm unmarried. I have no idea, I can a.s.sure you, of ever marrying; I shall have no children.

You are heir to the throne by right of birth, you are still more so in the consciousness of the people, who love you...."

"There you are, Albrecht, always talking about my being beloved. I simply don't believe it. At a distance, perhaps--that's the way with us.

It's always at a distance that we are beloved."

"You're too modest. Wait a bit. You've already been kind enough to relieve me of some of my representative duties now and then. I should like you to relieve me of all of them absolutely, for always."

"You're not thinking of abdicating, Albrecht?" asked Klaus Heinrich, aghast.

"I daren't think of it. Believe me, I gladly would, but I shouldn't be allowed to. What I'm thinking of is not a regency, but only a subst.i.tution--perhaps you have some recollection of the distinction in public law from your student's days--a permanent and officially established subst.i.tution in all representative functions, warranted by the need of indulgence required by my state of health. What is your opinion?"

"I'm at your orders, Albrecht. But I'm not quite clear yet. How far does the subst.i.tution extend?"