Page:T.M. Royal Highness.djvu/370

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354
ROYAL HIGHNESS

go slowly—so closely were they surrounded by admiring crowds; for as the more remote authors of our happiness, Grand Duke Albrecht and Samuel Spoelmann, each in his own fashion, concealed themselves from the crowd, the latter heaped all its love and gratitude on the heads of the exalted couple. Boys could be seen through the plate glass of the motor throwing their caps in the air, the shouts of men and women came surging in, clear and shrill, and Klaus Heinrich, his hand to his helmet, said admonishingly: "You must respond too, Imma, to your side, otherwise they'll think you cold."

They drove to Princess Katharine's, and were received with dignity. In the time of Grand Duke Johann Albrecht, her brother, said the aunt to her nephew, it would never have been allowed. But the times moved fast, and she prayed Heaven that his betrothed would accustom herself to the Court. They proceeded to Princess zu Ried-Hohenried's, and there it was love she met with. Ditlinde's Grimmburg pride found comfort in the assurance that Leviathan's daughter might become Princess of the Grand Ducal House and Royal Highness, but could never be Grand Ducal Princess like herself; for the rest, she was overjoyed that Klaus Heinrich had rummaged out for himself anything so sweet and precious. As the wife of Philipp with his peat, she had the best reasons for knowing how to value the advantages of the match, and cordially welcomed her sister-in-law to her arms.

They drove too to Prince Lambert's villa, and while the Countess-bride struggled to keep up a conversation with the dazzling but very uneducated Baroness von Rohrdorf, the old petticoat-hunter congratulated his nephew in his sepulchral voice on the unprejudiced choice he had made, and on so boldly snapping his fingers at Court and Highness. "I am not snapping my fingers at my Highness, uncle; not only have I had an eye to my own happiness in no incon-