Page:T.M. Royal Highness.djvu/163

Rh "Of course, Ditlinde; all people of his kind are ill, that's part of the business."

"Strange," said Klaus Heinrich.

"Yes, Grand Ducal Highness, it is remarkable. His kind of existence must bring that with it. For there's no doubt it's a trying existence, and not at all a comfortable one, and must wear the body out quicker than an ordinary man's life would. Most suffer in the stomach, but Spoelmann suffers from stone as everybody knows."

"Stone, does he?"

"Of course, Ditlinde, you must have heard it and for gotten it. He has stone in the kidneys, if you will forgive me the horrid expression—a serious, trying illness, and I'm sure he can't get the slightest pleasure from his frantic wealth."

"But how in the world has he pitched upon our waters?"

"Why, Ditlinde, that's simple. The waters are good, they're excellent; especially the Ditlinde spring, with its lithium or whatever they call it, is admirable against gout and stone, and only waiting to be properly known and valued throughout the world. But a man like Spoelmann, you can imagine, a man like that is above names and trade-puffs, and follows his own kind. And so he has discovered our waters—or his physician has recommended them to him, it may be that, and bought it in the bottle, and it has done him good, and now he may think that it must do him still more good if he drinks it on the spot."

They all kept silence.

"Great heavens, Albrecht," said Ditlinde at last, "whatever one thinks of Spoelmann and his kind—and I'm not going to commit myself to an opinion, of that you may be sure—but don't you think that the man's visit to the Spa may be very useful?"

The Grand Duke turned his head with his stiff and refined smile.