In this connexion account must be taken firstly of Mr. Spoelmann's fiery and excitable disposition, and secondly of the fact that to the prodigious little man a favourable termination to the business from our point of view seemed far less important than it did to us. Apart from Mr. Spoelmann's love for his daughter, who had opened her heart to him and told him of her pretty wish to make herself useful in her love, our proxies had not one trump to play against him, and he was the last man to whom Dr. Krippenreuther could dictate conditions in virtue of what Herr von Bühl had to offer. Mr. Spoelmann always spoke of Prince Klaus Heinrich as "the young man," and expressed so little pleasure at the prospect of giving his daughter to a Royal Highness to wife, that Dr. Krippenreuther, as well as Herr von Bühl, were more than once plunged into deadly embarrassment. "If he'd only learnt something, had some respectable business," he snarled peevishly. "But a young man who only knows how to get cheered ..." He was really furious, the first time a remark was dropped about morganatic marriage. His daughter, he declared once for all, was no concubine, and would be no left-handed wife. Who marries her, marries her.... But the interests of the dynasty and the country coincided at this point with his own. The obtaining of issue entitled to succeed was a necessity, and Herr von Bühl was equipped with all the powers which Herr von Knobelsdorff had succeeded in extracting from the Grand Duke. As for Dr. Krippenreuther's mission, however, it owed its success not to the envoy's eloquence, but simply to Mr. Spoelmann's paternal affection, the complaisance of a suffering, weary father, whose abnormal existence had long ago made him a paradox, towards his only daughter and heiress, whom he allowed to choose for herself the public funds in which she wished to invest her fortune. And so came into existence the agreements, which were at first shrouded in deep secrecy and only came to light bit by bit, as events developed themselves, though here they can be summarized in a few plain words. The betrothal of Klaus Heinrich with Imma Spoelmann was approved and recognized by Samuel Spoelmann and by the House of Grimmburg. Simultaneously with the publication of the betrothal in the _Gazette_ appeared the announcement of the elevation of the bride to the rank of countess--under a fancy name of romantic sound, like that which Klaus Heinrich had borne during his educational tour in the fair southern lands; and on the day of their wedding the wife of the heir-presumptive was to be given the dignity of a princess. The two rises in rank, which might have cost four thousand eight hundred marks, were to be free of duty.