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246 yet seen close, and which he admired immensely. Fatma had a long, muscular neck and small, nodding head with fiery eyes; she had the slender legs of the Arab type, and a bushy tail. She was white as the moonlight, and saddled, girt, and bridled with white leather. Florian, a rather sleepy brown, with a short back, hogged mane, and yellow stockings, looked as homely as a donkey by the side of the distinguished foreigner, although he was carefully groomed. Countess Löwenjoul rode a big cream called Isabeau. She had an excellent seat, with her tall, straight figure, but she held her small head in its huge hat on one side, and her lids were half closed and twitched. Klaus Heinrich addressed some remarks to her behind Miss Spoelmann's back, but she did not answer, and went riding on with half-shut eyes, gazing in front of her with a Madonna-like expression, and Imma said:

"Don't let's bother the Countess, Prince, her thoughts are wandering."

"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 passing 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.&hellip; That, too, is inseparable from my kind of existence, as I said. But I am not