Here all was still and stony; the stair-turrets with their oblique windows, forged-iron bal.u.s.trades, and fine carvings towered in the corners; the many-styled building stood there in light and shadow, partly grey and weather-worn, partly more modern-looking, with gables and box-like projections, with open porticoes and peeps through broad bow-windows into vaulted halls and narrow galleries. But in the middle, in its unfenced bed, stood the rose-bush, blooming gloriously after a favourable season.

Klaus Heinrich threw the reins to a servant, and went up and looked at the dark-red roses. They were exceptionally fine--full and velvety, grandly formed, and a real masterwork of nature. Several were already full-blown.

"Call Ezekiel, please," said Klaus Heinrich to a moustachioed door-keeper, who came forward with his hand to his hat.

Ezekiel, the custodian of the rose-bush, came. He was a greybeard of seventy years of age, in a gardener's ap.r.o.n, with watery eyes and a bent back.

"Have you any shears by you, Ezekiel?" said Klaus Heinrich, "I should like a rose." And Ezekiel drew some shears out of the pocket of his ap.r.o.n.

"That one there," said Klaus Heinrich, "that's the finest." And the old man cut the th.o.r.n.y branch with trembling hands.

"I'll water it, Royal Highness," he said, and shuffled off to the water-tap in a corner of the court. When he came back, glittering drops were clinging to the petals of the rose, as if to the feathers of waterfowl.

"Thanks, Ezekiel," said Klaus Heinrich, and took the rose. "Still going strong? Here!" He gave the old man a gold piece, and climbing into the dogcart drove with the rose on the seat beside him through the courtyards. Everybody who saw him thought that he was driving back to the "Hermitage" from the Old Schloss, where presumably he had an interview with the Grand Duke.

But he drove through the Town Gardens to Delphinenort. The sky had clouded over, big drops were already falling on the leaves, and thunder rolled in the distance.

The ladies were at tea when Klaus Heinrich, conducted by the corpulent butler, appeared in the gallery and walked down the steps into the garden room. Mr. Spoelmann, as usual recently, was not present. He was in bed with poultices on. Percival, who lay curled up like a snail close by Imma's chair, beat the carpet with his tail by way of greeting. The gilding of the furniture looked dull, as the park beyond the gla.s.s door lay in a damp mist.

Klaus Heinrich exchanged a handshake with the daughter of the house, and kissed the Countess's hand, while he gently raised her from the courtly curtsey she had begun, as usual, to make.

"You see, summer has come," he said to Imma Spoelmann, offering her the rose. It was the first time he had brought her flowers.

"How courtly of you!" she said. "Thanks, Prince. And what a beauty!" she went on in honest admiration (a thing she hardly ever showed), and held out her small, ringless hands for the glorious flower, whose dewy petals curled exquisitely at the edges. "Are there such fine roses here? Where did you get it?" And she bent her dark head eagerly over it.

Her eyes were full of horror when she looked up again.

"It doesn't smell!" she said, and a look of disgust showed round her mouth. "Wait, though--it smells of decay!" she said. "What's this you have brought me, Prince?" And her big black eyes in her pale face seemed to glow with questioning horror.

"Yes," he said, "I'm sorry; that's a way our roses have. It's from the bush in one of the courts of the Old Schloss. Have you never heard of it? There's something hangs by that. People say that one day it will begin to smell exquisite."

She seemed not to be listening to him. "It seems as if it had no soul,"

she said, and looked at the rose. "But it's perfectly beautiful, that one must allow. Well, that's a doubtful joke on nature's part, Prince.

All the same, Prince, thanks for your attention. And as it comes from your ancestral Schloss, one must regard it with due reverence."

She put the rose in a gla.s.s by her plate. A swan's-down flunkey brought the Prince a cup and plate. They discussed at tea the bewitched rose-bush, and then commonplace subjects, such as the Court Theatre, their horses, and all sorts of trivial topics. Imma Spoelmann time after time contradicted him, interposing polished quotations--to her own enjoyment, and his despair at the range of her reading--quotations which she uttered in her broken voice, with whimsical motions of her head.

After a time a heavy, white-paper parcel was brought in, sent by the book-binders to Miss Spoelmann, containing a number of works which she had had bound in smart and durable bindings. She opened the parcel, and they all three examined the books to see if the binder had done his work well.

They were nearly all learned works whose contents were either as mysterious-looking as Imma Spoelmann's notebook, or dealt with scientific psychology, acute a.n.a.lyses of internal impulses. They were got up in the most sumptuous way, with parchment and crushed leather, gold letters, fine paper, and silk markers. Imma Spoelmann did not display much enthusiasm over the consignment, but Klaus Heinrich, who had never seen such handsome volumes, was full of admiration.

"Shall you put them all into the bookcase?" he asked. "With the others upstairs? I suppose you have quant.i.ties of books? Are they all as fine as these? Do let me see how you arrange them. I can't go yet, the weather's still bad and would ruin my white trousers. Besides, I've no idea how you live in Delphinenort, I've never seen your study. Will you show me your books?"

"That depends on the Countess," she said, busying herself with piling the volumes one on the other. "Countess, the Prince wants to see my books. Would you be so kind as to say what you think?"

Countess Lowenjoul was in a brown study. With her small head bent, she was watching Klaus Heinrich with a sharp, almost hostile look, and then let her eyes wander to Imma Spoelmann, when her expression altered and became gentle, sympathetic, and anxious. She came to herself with a smile, and drew a little watch out of her brown, close-fitting dress.

"At seven o'clock," she said brightly, "Mr. Spoelmann expects you to read to him, Imma. You have half an hour in which to do what his Royal Highness wants."

"Good; come along, Prince, and inspect my study," said Imma. "And so far as your Highness permits it, please lend a hand in carrying up these books; I'll take half."

But Klaus Heinrich took them all. He clasped them in both arms, though the left was not much use to him, and the pile reached to his chin.

Then, bending backwards and going carefully, so as to drop nothing, he followed Imma over into the wing towards the drive, on the main floor of which lay Countess Lowenjoul's and Miss Spoelmann's quarters.

In the big, comfortable room which they entered through a heavy door he laid his burden down on the top of a hexagonal ebony table, which stood in front of a big gold-chintzed sofa. Imma Spoelmann's study was not furnished in the style proper to the Schloss, but in more modern taste, without any show, but with ma.s.sive, masculine, serviceable luxury. It was panelled with rare woods right up to the top, and adorned with old porcelain, which glittered on the brackets all round under the ceiling.

The carpets were Persian, the mantelpiece black marble, on which stood shapely vases and a gilt clock. The chairs were broad and velvet-covered, and the curtains of the same golden stuff as the sofa-cover. A capacious desk stood in front of the bow-window, which allowed a view of the big basin in front of the Schloss. One wall was covered with books, but the main library was in the adjacent room, which was smaller, and carpeted like the big one. A gla.s.s door opened into it, and its walls were completely covered with bookshelves right up to the ceiling.

"Well, Prince, there's my hermitage," said Imma Spoelmann. "I hope you like it."

"Why, it's glorious," he said. But he did not look round him, but gazed unintermittently at her, as she reclined against the sofa cushions by the hexagonal table. She was wearing one of her beautiful indoor dresses, a summer one this time, made of white accordion-pleated stuff, with open sleeves and gold embroidery on the yoke. The skin of her arms and neck seemed brown as meerschaum against the white of the dress; her big, bright, earnest eyes in the strangely childlike face seemed to speak a language of their own unceasingly, and a smooth wisp of black hair hung across her forehead. She had Klaus Heinrich's rose in her hand.

"How lovely!" he said, standing before her, and not conscious of what he meant. His blue eyes, above the national cheek-bones, were heavy as with grief. "You have as many books," he added, "as my sister Ditlinde has flowers."

"Has the Princess so many flowers?"

"Yes, but of late she has not set so much store by them."

"Let's clear these away," she said and took up some books.

"No, wait," he said anxiously. "I've such a lot to say to you, and our time is so short. You must know that to-day is my birthday--that's why I came and brought you the rose."

"Oh," she said, "that is an event. Your birthday to-day? Well, I'm sure that you received all your congratulations with the dignity you always show. You may have mine as well! It was sweet of you to bring me the rose, although it has its doubtful side." And she tried the mouldy smell once more with an expression of fear on her face. "How old are you to-day, Prince?"

"Twenty-seven," he answered. "I was born twenty-seven years ago in the Grimmburg. Ever since then I've had a strenuous and lonely time of it."

She did not answer. And suddenly he saw her eyes, under her slightly frowning eye-brows, move to his side. Yes, although he was standing sideways to her with his right shoulder towards her, as he had trained himself to do, he could not prevent her eyes fastening on his left arm, on the hand which he had planted right back on his hip.

"Were you born with that?" she asked softly.

He grew pale. But with a cry, which rang like a cry of redemption, he sank down before her, and clasped her wondrous form in both his arms.

There he lay, in his white trousers and his blue and red coat with the major's shoulder-straps.

"Little sister," he said, "little sister----"

She answered with a pout: "Think of appearances, Prince. I consider that one should not let oneself go, but should keep up appearances on all occasions."

But he was too far gone, and raising his face to her, his eyes in a mist, he only said, "Imma--little Imma----"

Then she took his hand, the left, atrophied one, the deformity, the hindrance in his lofty calling, which he had been wont from boyhood to hide artfully and carefully--she took it and kissed it.

VIII

THE FULFILMENT

Grave reports were flying around concerning the state of health of the Finance Minister, Doctor Krippenreuther. People hinted at nervous break-down, at a progressive stomach-trouble, which indeed Herr Krippenreuther's flabby yellow complexion was calculated to suggest....

What is Greatness? The daily-breader, the journeyman, might envy this tortured dignitary his t.i.tle, his chain, his rank at Court, his important office, to which he had climbed so pertinaciously, only to wear himself out in it: but not when these all meant the concomitant of his illness. His retirement was repeatedly announced to be impending. It was said to be due simply and solely to the Grand Duke's dislike of new faces, as well as to the consideration that matters could not be improved by a change of personnel, that his resignation had not already become a fact. Dr. Krippenreuther had spent his summer leave in a health-resort in the hills. Perhaps he might have improved somewhat up there. But anyhow after his return his recouped strength ebbed away quickly again. For at the very beginning of the Parliamentary session a rift had come between him and the Budget Commission--serious dissensions, which were certainly not from any want of industry on his part, but from the circ.u.mstances, from the incurable position of affairs.