Page:T.M. Royal Highness.djvu/294

278 and looked at the dark-red roses. They were exceptionally fine—full and velvety, grandly formed, and a real master-work of nature. Several were already full-blown.

"Call Ezekiel, please," said Klaus Heinrich to a moustachioed door-keeper, who came forward with his hand to his hat.

Ezekiel, the custodian of the rosebush, came. He was a greybeard of seventy years of age, in a gardener's apron, with watery eyes and a bent back.

"Have you any shears by you, Ezekiel?" said Klaus Heinrich, "I should like a rose." And Ezekiel drew some shears out of the pocket of his apron.

"That one there," said Klaus Heinrich, "that's the finest." And the old man cut the thorny branch with trembling hands.

"I'll water it, Royal Highness," he said, and shuffled off to the water-tap in a corner of the court. When he came back, glittering drops were clinging to the petals of the rose, as if to the feathers of waterfowl.

"Thanks, Ezekiel," said Klaus Heinrich, and took the rose. "Still going strong? Here!" He gave the old man a gold piece, and climbing into the dogcart drove with the rose on the seat beside him through the courtyards. Everybody who saw him thought that he was driving back to the "Hermitage" from the Old Schloss, where presumably he had had an interview with the Grand Duke.

But he drove through the Town Gardens to Delphinenort. The sky had clouded over, big drops were already falling on the leaves, and thunder rolled in the distance.

The ladies were at tea when Klaus Heinrich, conducted by the corpulent butler, appeared in the gallery and walked down the steps into the garden room. Mr. Spoelmann, as usual recently, was not present. He was in bed with poultices on. Percival, who lay curled up like a snail close by Imma's chair, beat the carpet with his tail by way