Page:T.M. Royal Highness.djvu/27

Rh be an exclusively decorative personality and yet be acute enough to grasp this. &hellip; Besides &hellip; honestly &hellip; we've all of us grasped it. And the only grain of comfort for all of us is this: that there isn't a prince alive to whom it would be more fatal to mention his debts than to his Royal Highness. Our Prince has a something about him which would stop any tactless remarks of that sort before they were spoken&hellip;"

"Quite true, quite true," said Herr von Schroder. He sighed and stroked thoughtfully the swansdown trimming of his hat. The two men were sitting, half turned towards each other, on a raised window seat in a roomy niche, past which a narrow stone corridor ran outside, a kind of gallery, through the pointed arches of which peeps of the town could be seen. Herr von Schroder went on:

"You answer me, Baron; one would think you were contradicting me, and yet your words show more incredu lity and bitterness than my own."

Herr von Knobelsdorff said nothing, but made a vague gesture of assent.

"It may be so," said the Finance Minister, and nodded gloomily at his hat. "Your Excellency may be quite right. Perhaps we are all blameworthy, we and our forefathers too. But it ought to have been stopped. For consider, Baron; ten years ago an opportunity offered itself of putting the finances of the Court on a sound footing, on a better footing anyhow, if you like. It was lost. We understand each other. The Grand Duke, attractive man that he is, had it then in his power to clear things up by a marriage which from a sound point of view might have been called dazzling. Instead of that &hellip; speaking not for myself, of course, but I shall never forget the disgust on everybody's faces when they mentioned the amount of the dowry.&hellip;"

"The Grand Duchess," said Herr von Knobelsdorff, and