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Updated: June 1, 2025
Then they turned her head the other way." "It was pure devilry in me. You should have seen the Chamber! Good God! Bederhof, now!" His eyes twinkled merrily, and my laugh answered their mirth. "One can always laugh," said I with a shrug. "It was invented for the world before the Fall, and they forgot to take it away afterward," he said. "But you? You take things seriously?"
"And I am very anxious to return. We'll go by the evening train to-morrow. Send word to Bederhof." He seemed rather surprised and not very pleased, but promised to see that my orders were executed. I sat down in the chair in which Wetter had sat, and began again to console myself with my Stoic maxim. But there was a point at which I stuck.
Then I slipped away and paid marked and honorific courtesy to Bederhof's wife and Bederhof's daughters, tall girls, not over-quick to be married, somehow quite inevitable if one considered Bederhof himself. Rising from my plunge, I looked round for Elsa. She had left my mother and taken a seat in a recess by the window.
For my own part I said that I should be very glad to see the Count and the Countess, and that they had a clear claim to their invitation. My mother's manner had shown that she felt herself in no position to raise objections; Bederhof took my commands with resigned deference. I was aware that his wife had ceased to call on the Countess some time before Count Max went Ambassador to Paris.
Victoria blossomed in diamonds, William Adolphus sprouted in plumes; my mother embodied the stately, Cousin Elizabeth a gorgeous heartiness; the Duke's eyes wore a bored look, but the remainder of his person was fittingly resplendent. Bederhof was Bumble in Olympus; beyond these came a sea of smiles, bows, silks, and uniforms.
Well then, I lead, or she leads, another suit. It's a good game; and our stakes are not high. You, sire, would like signals harder to read, I know your taste. You're right there. And don't you make the stakes higher? I have plunged into indiscretion; if I did not, you would think that Bederhof had forged my handwriting. Unless I am stopped on the frontier I shall be in Forstadt in three weeks."
Old Prince Hammerfeldt had left a successor behind him in the person of his nephew, Baron von Bederhof, and this gentleman was now my Chancellor and my chief official adviser. He was a portly man of about fifty, with red cheeks and black hair. He was high in favour with my mother, the husband of a buxom wife, and the father of nine children.
"Well, there was talk," said I, smiling and allowing my eyes to rest on the figure of William Adolphus, visible in the distance. "It would have been better not to have her, perhaps. It can be altered, I suppose." "Bederhof sanctioned it without referring to you or to me. It has become public now." "Oh, I didn't know that." "Yes; it's in the evening papers." "Any any remarks?"
"Oh, thank you!" she cried. I kissed her hand and her cheek. My mother smiled, patiently it seemed to me; the Duchess was tremulously radiant; Bederhof obviously benign. It was a pretty group, with the pretty child and her pretty toy for the centre of it. Suddenly I looked at my mother; she nodded ever so slightly. I was applauded and commanded to persevere. Bederhof pursued his description.
Bederhof was right, the marriage was urgent; I must marry just as occasionally I was compelled to review the troops. I had as little aptitude for one duty as for the other, but both were among my obligations. I was so rooted in this attitude that I turned to Victoria with a start of surprise when she said to me one day: "She's very pretty; I daresay you'll fall in love with her."
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