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296 spirit by Imma Spoelmann's side with his left hand on his hip, and, still incompetent to think their thought out to its conclusion, they quivered at their half-thought.

At that time everything was still in the clouds, and nobody thought anything out to its conclusion—not even the persons most immediately concerned. For the relations between Klaus Heinrich and Imma Spoelmann were wondrous strange, and their minds—his as well—could not be brought to centre on any immediate, palpable goal. As a matter of fact, that laconic conversation on the afternoon of the Prince's birthday (when Miss Spoelmann had showed him her books) had made but the slightest, if any, alteration in their relations. Klaus Heinrich may have gone back to the "Hermitage" in that condition of heated enthusiasm proper to young people on such occasions, convinced that something decisive had happened: but he soon learned that his wooing of what he had recognized to be his only happiness was only now really beginning.

But, as has been said, this wooing could not aim at any objective result, a bourgeois promise or such-like—such an idea was almost inconceivable, and besides the Prince lived in too great seclusion from the practical world for such an end to present itself to him. In fact the object of Klaus Heinrich's pleadings with looks and words from that time onward was not that Miss Spoelmann should reciprocate the feelings he entertained towards her, but that she might feel impelled to believe in the reality and liveliness of those feelings. For that was what she did not do.

He let two weeks pass before he sent in his name at Delphinenort again, and during these he feasted spiritually on what had already occurred. He was in no hurry to supersede that happening with a new one. Be sides, his time just now was occupied by several representa tive functions, including the annual festival of the Miniature Range Rifle Club, whose well-informed patron he was and