sober Empire room, where he dined with von Schulenburg-Tressen and Braunbart-Schellendorf. Next day he read the comments in the Courier. They amounted only to a statement that yesterday his Royal Highness Prince Klaus Heinrich went to Schloss Delphinenort for tea, and inspected Mr. Spoelmann's renowned collection of fancy glass.
And Klaus Heinrich continued to live his unreal life, and to carry out his exalted calling. He uttered his gracious speeches, made his gestures, represented his people at the Court and at the President of the Council's great ball, gave free audiences, lunched in the officers' mess of the Grenadier Guards, showed himself at the Court Theatre, and bestowed on this and that district of the country the privilege of his presence. With a smile, and with heels together, he carried out all due formalities and did his irksome duty with complete self-possession, albeit he had at this time so much to think of—about the peppery Mr. Spoeknann, the muddle-headed Countess Löwenjoul, the harum-scarum Percy, and especially about Imma, the daughter of the house. Many a question to which his first visit to Delphinenort had given rise he was not yet in a position to answer, but only succeeded in solving as the result of further intercourse with the Spoelmanns, which he maintained to the eager and at last feverish interest of the public, and which advanced a step further when the Prince in the early morning one day, to the astonishment of his suite, his servants, and himself—indeed, partly involuntarily, and as if carried along by destiny—appeared alone and on horseback at Delphinenort, for the purpose of taking Miss Spoelmann, whom he disturbed in her mathematical studies at the top of the Schloss, for a ride.
The grip of winter had relaxed early in this ever-to-be-remembered year. After a mild January, the middle of February had seen the coming of a preliminary spring
