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As may be anticipated from what I have said, he regarded no man as utterly lost unless he were completely under the influence of a woman. Yet it was by Hammerfeldt's will that Geoffrey Owen became my daily companion and familiar friend. Vohrenlorf visited me once or twice a week, and exercised a perfunctory superintendence. I had, of course, many masters who came and went at appointed hours.
I told them what I had to tell about Hammerfeldt's death. Victoria broke into compassionate comments, my mother listened in silence. "Poor old Hammerfeldt!" I ended reflectively. "Where were you when you got the news?" asked Victoria. I looked at her. Then I answered quietly: "I was calling on the Countess von Sempach. I lunched with Wetter and went on there." There was a pause.
I was unable to regard William Adolphus as an intellectual resource, and did not associate Victoria with the exercise of influence. The weakness of the Princess's new move revealed the straits to which she felt herself reduced. The result of the position which I have described was almost open strife between her and me; Hammerfeldt's powerful bridle alone held her back from declared rupture.
"He bowed over my hand and kissed it and smiled, and twinkled with his old eyes, and then he said, 'Madame, I am growing vain of my influence over his Majesty." "The Prince was complimenting you," I remarked, although I was not so dull as to miss either Hammerfeldt's mockery or her understanding of it. "Complimenting me? Yes, I suppose he was on not having done you any harm. Why?
Thus he brought with him into our conservative military court and society the latest breath of generous hope and human aspiration that had blown over Oxford. Surely this was a strange choice of Hammerfeldt's!
Yet he knew that the situation of his house was more responsible for my visit than the interest of his projects. In part I saw clear enough even at this time. It was the design and hope of Wetter and his friends to break down Hammerfeldt's power and obtain a political influence over me.
To Hammerfeldt's instructions I listened with avidity and showed a deference which did not forbid secret criticism. He was too shrewd not to detect in me a curiosity of intellect that only the strongest and deepest prepossessions could restrain; these it was his untiring effort to create in my mind and to buttress till they were impregnable.
Wetter's Bill came up for discussion, and was hurled in vain against Hammerfeldt's solid phalanx of country gentlemen and wealthy bourgeoisie. I had kept a seal on my lips, and in common opinion was still the Prince's docile disciple.
"Now Hammerfeldt's gone, I thought a friendly word or two would not come amiss." Hammerfeldt was dead; now came William Adolphus. Il n'y a pas d'homme nécessaire. "Of course you can do nothing abrupt," he continued. "But I should think you might gradually " "I understand you absolutely," said I, rising to my feet. "What I mean is " "My dear fellow, not another word is needed."
But Owen rose steadily to the old man's skilful fly; he did not lecture the minister nor preach to him, but answered his questions simply and from the heart, without show and without disguise. Old Hammerfeldt's face grew into a network of amused and tolerant wrinkles. "My dear Mr. Owen," said he, "I heard all this forty fifty years ago.
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