Page:T.M. Royal Highness.djvu/278

262 "Are we friends?"

"I hoped so," he said pleadingly.

"Well, well, patience! I didn't know it, but I'm quite ready to learn it. But to return to my father, he really did lose his temper at your question—he has a quick temper, and has plenty of occasion to practise losing it. The fact is that public opinion and sentiment were not over-friendly to us in America. There's such a lot of scheming over there—I may mention that I am not posted in the details, but there was a strong political movement towards setting the crowd, the common people, you know, against us. The result was legislation and restrictions which made my father's life over there a burden to him. You know of course, Prince, that it was not he who made us what we are, but my redoubtable grandfather with his Paradise nugget and Blockhead Farm. My father could not help it he was born to his destiny, and it was no gratification to him, because he is naturally shy and sensitive, and would much have preferred to have lived for playing the organ and collecting glass. I really believe that the hatred which was the result of the scheming against us, so that sometimes the people hurled abuse after me when I motored past them—that the hatred quite probably brought on his stone in the kidneys; it's more than possible."

"I am cordially attached to your father," said Klaus Heinrich with emphasis.

"I should have made that, Prince, a condition of our becoming friends. But there was another point which made things worse, and made our position over there still more difficult, and that was our origin."

"Your origin?"

"Yes, Prince; we are no aristocratic pheasants, unfortunately we are not descended from Washington or from the Pilgrim Fathers."

"No, for you are German."