Royal Highness Part 21

"I hope," he said, "that the Countess was not annoyed at having to come with us."

And he was distinctly taken aback when Imma Spoelmann answered casually: "To tell the truth, she very likely was."

"Because of your sums?" he asked.

"Oh, the sums? They're not so urgent, only a way of pa.s.sing the time--although I hope to get a good lot of useful information out of them. But I don't mind telling you, Prince, that the Countess is not enthusiastic on the subject of yourself. She has expressed herself to that effect to me. She said you were hard and stern and affected her like a cold douche."

Klaus Heinrich reddened.

"I know well," he said quietly, looking down at his reins, "that I don't act as a cordial, Miss Spoelmann, or, at any rate, only at a distance.... That, too, is inseparable from my kind of existence, as I said. But I am not conscious of having shown myself hard and stern to the Countess."

"Probably not in words," she replied, "but you did not allow her to let herself go, you did not do her the kindness of letting her tongue run a little, that's why she's vexed with you--and I know quite well what you did, how you embarra.s.sed the poor thing and gave her a cold douche--quite well," she repeated, and turned her head away.

Klaus Heinrich did not answer. He kept his left hand planted on his hip, and his eyes were tired. Then he said:

"You know quite well? So I act like a cold douche on you too, Miss Spoelmann, do I?"

"I warn you," she answered at once in her broken voice, and wagging her head from side to side, "on no account to overrate the effect you have upon me, Prince." And she suddenly set Fatma off at a gallop and flew at such a pace over the fields towards the dark ma.s.s of the distant pine-woods that neither the Countess nor Klaus Heinrich could keep up with her. Not till she reached the edge of the wood through which the high-road ran did she halt and turn her horse to look mockingly at her followers.

Countess Lowenjoul on her cream was the first to come up with the runaway. Then came Florian, foaming and much exhausted by his unusual exertion. They all laughed and their breath came fast as they entered the echoing wood. The Countess had awakened and chatted merrily, making lively, graceful gestures and showing her white teeth. She poked fun at Percival, whose temper had again been excited by the gallop, and who was careering wildly among the trunks in front of the horses.

"Royal Highness," she said, "you ought to see him jump and turn somersaults. He can take a ditch six yards broad, and does it so lightly and gracefully, you'd be delighted. But only of his own accord, mind you, of his free will, for I believe he'd rather let himself be whipped to death than submit to any training or teaching of tricks. He is, one might say, his own trainer by nature, and though sometimes unruly he is never rough. He is a gentleman, an aristocrat, and full of character.

He's as proud as you like, and though he seems mad he's quite able to control himself. n.o.body has ever heard him cry for pain when punished and hurt. He only eats, too, when he is hungry, and at other times won't look at the most tempting dainties. In the morning he has cream ... he must be fed. He wears himself out, he's quite thin under his glossy coat, you can feel all his ribs. For I'm afraid he'll never grow to be old, but will fall an early victim to consumption. The street curs persecute him, they go for him in every street, but he jumps clear of them, and if they succeed in joining issue with him, he distributes a few bites with his splendid teeth which the rabble don't forget in a hurry. One must love such a compound of chivalry and virtue."

Imma agreed, in words which were the most serious and grave which Klaus Heinrich had ever heard from her mouth.

"Yes," she said, "you're a good friend to me, Percy, I shall always love you. A veterinary surgeon said you were half mad and advised us to have you put away, as you were impossible and a constant danger to us. But they shan't take my Percy from me. He is impossible, I know, and often an inc.u.mbrance, but he's always appealing and n.o.ble, and I love him dearly."

The Countess continued to talk about the collie's nature, but her remarks soon became disconnected and confused, and lapsed into a monologue accompanied by lively and elegant gestures. At last, after an acid look at Klaus Heinrich, her thoughts again began to wander.

Klaus Heinrich felt happy and cheered, whether as the result of the canter--for which he had had to brace himself up, for, though a decent figure on a horse, his left hand prevented him from being a strong rider--or for some other reason. After leaving the pine-wood they rode along the quiet high-road between meadows and furrowed fields, with a peasant's hut or a country inn here and there. As they drew near the next wood, he asked in a low voice:

"Won't you fulfil your promise and tell me about the Countess? What is your companion's history?"

"She is my friend," she answered, "and in a sense my governess too, although she did not come to us till I was grown up. That was three years ago, in New York, and the Countess was then in a terrible state.

She was on the brink of starvation," said Miss Spoelmann, and as she said it she fastened her big black eyes with a searching, startled look on Klaus Heinrich.

"Really starvation?" he asked, and returned her look.... "Do please go on."

"Yes, I said that too when she came to us, and although I, of course, saw quite well that her mind was slightly affected, she made such an impression upon me that I persuaded my father to let her be my companion."

"What took her to America? Is she a countess by birth?" asked Klaus Heinrich.

"Not a countess, but of n.o.ble birth, brought up in refined and luxurious surroundings, sheltered and protected, as she expressed it to me, from every wind, because from childhood she had been impressionable and sensitive. But then she married a Count Lowenjoul, a cavalry captain--a strange specimen of the aristocracy, according to her account--not quite up to the mark, to put it mildly."

"What was wrong with him?" asked Klaus Heinrich.

"I can't exactly tell you, Prince. You must take into consideration the rather obscure way in which the Countess puts what she has to say. But, to judge from what she has told me, he must have been just about as arrant a scamp as one could well imagine--a regular blackguard."

"I see," said Klaus Heinrich, "what's called a hard case, or a tough proposition."

"Exactly; we'll say man of the world--but in the most comprehensive and unlimited sense, for, to judge by the Countess's remarks, there were no limits in his case."

"No, that's what I too gathered," said Klaus Heinrich. "I've met several people of that sort--regular devils, so to speak. I heard of one such, who used to make love in his motor car, even when it was going at full speed."

"Did your friend Ueberbein tell you of him?"

"No, somebody else. Ueberbein would not think it proper to mention anything of that sort to me."

"Then he must be a useless sort of friend, Prince."

"You'll think better of him when I tell you more about him, Miss Spoelmann. But please go on!"

"Well, I don't know whether Lowenjoul behaved like your roue. Anyhow he behaved disgracefully."

"I expect he gambled and drank."

"I guess so. And besides that of course he made love, neglected the Countess and carried on with the loose women that are always to be found everywhere--at first behind her back, and later no longer behind her back but impudently and openly without any regard for her feelings."

"But tell me, why did she ever marry him?"

"She married him against her parents' will, because, as she has told me, she was in love with him. For in the first place, he was a handsome man when she first met him--he fell off in his looks later. In the second place, his reputation as a man of the world had gone before him, and that, according to her, const.i.tuted a sort of irresistible attraction for her, for, though she had been so well sheltered and protected, nothing would shake her in her resolve to share her life with him. If one thinks it over, one can quite understand it."

"Yes," he said, "I can quite understand it. She wanted to have her fling, as it were, to get her eyes opened. And she saw the world with a vengeance."

"You may put it like that if you like: though the expression seems to me rather too flippant to describe her experiences. Her husband ill-treated her."

"Do you mean that he beat her?"

"Yes, he ill-treated her physically. But now comes something, Prince, which you too will not have heard about before. She gave me to understand that he ill-treated her not only in a temper, not only in anger and rage, but also without being exasperated, simply for his own satisfaction. I mean, that his caresses were so revolting as to amount to ill-treatment."

Klaus Heinrich was silent. Both looked very grave. At last he asked: "Did the Countess have any children?"

"Yes, two. They died quite young, both only a few weeks old, and that's the greatest sorrow the Countess has had to bear. It would seem from her hints that it was the fault of the loose women for whom her husband betrayed her that the children died directly after birth."

Both remained silent, and their eyes clouded over.

"Add to that," continued Imma Spoelmann, "that he dissipated his wife's dowry, at cards and with women--a respectable dowry it was too--and after her parents' death her whole fortune also. Relations of hers too helped him once, when he was near having to leave the service on account of his debts. But then came a scandal, an altogether revolting one, in which he was involved and which did for him once and for all."

"What was it?" asked Klaus Heinrich.

"I can't exactly tell you, Prince. But, according to what the Countess has let slip about it, it was a scandal of the very grossest description--we agreed just now that there are generally no limits in that direction."

"And then he went to America?"

"You're right there, Prince. I can't help admiring your 'cuteness."

"Please go on, Miss Spoelmann. I've never heard anything like the Countess's story."