for her—she did not expect or want one—yet it was in a fairly cheerful frame of mind that he mounted his dog-cart; for the piece of creased oil-silk in the back pocket of his uniform coat seemed to him, though unconsciously, a pledge of a happy future.
However that might be, for the present his struggle was only beginning. It was the struggle for Imma Spoelmann's faith, the struggle to make her so far trust him as to be capable of deciding to leave the clear and frosty sphere wherein she had been wont to play, to descend from the realms of algebra and conversational ridicule, and to venture with him into the untrodden zone, that warmer, more fragrant, more fruitful zone to which he showed her the way. For she was overpoweringly shy of making any such decision.
Next time he was alone with her, or as good as alone, because Countess Lowenjoul was the third, it was a cool, over-cast morning, after a break in the weather the night before. They rode along the meadow-woods, Klaus Heinrich in high boots, with the crook of his crop suspended between the buttons of his grey cloak. The sluices at the wooden bridge up stream were shut, the bed of the stream lay empty and stony. Percival, whose first outburst had died down, jumped here and there or trotted sideways, dog-fashion, in front of the horses. The Countess, on Isabeau, kept her head on one side and smiled. Klaus Heinrich was saying: "I'm always thinking, night and day, about something which must have been a dream. I lie at night and can hear Florian over in the stall snuffling, it's so quiet. And then I think, for certain it was ho dream. But when I see you as I do to-day, and did the other day at tea, I cannot possibly think it anything more substantial."
She replied: "I must ask you to explain yourself. Sire."
"Did you show me your books nineteen days ago, Miss Spoelmann—or not?"
