Then, while the polonaise gave place to a round dance, contentment spread, cheeks glowed, the heat of the throng kindled feelings of fondness, faintness, and foreboding among the dancers, the distinguished guests stood as distinguished guests are wont to stand on such occasions--apart and smiling graciously on the platform, at the top of the hall under the gallery. From time to time Johann Albrecht engaged a distinguished man, and Dorothea engaged his wife, in conversation. Those addressed stepped quickly and smartly forward and back, kept their distance half-bowing with their heads bent, nodded, shook their heads, laughed in this attitude at the questions and remarks addressed to them--answered eagerly on the spur of the moment, with sudden and anticipatory changes from hearty amusement to the deepest earnestness, with a passionateness which was doubtless unusual to them, and obviously in a state of tension. Curious guests, still panting from the dance, stood in a semicircle round and stared at these purposely trivial conversations with a peculiarly tense expression on their faces. Klaus Heinrich was the object of much attention. Together with two red-headed cousins who were already in the army, but were wearing mufti that evening, he kept a little behind his parents, resting on one leg, his left hand placed far back on his hip, his face turned with his right half-profile to the public. A reporter of the _Courier_ who had been bidden to the ball made notes upon him in a corner. The Prince could be seen to greet with his white-gloved right hand his tutor, Doctor Ueberbein, who with his red beard and greenish tint came along the fence of spectators; he was seen even to advance some way into the hall to meet him. The doctor, with big enamel studs in his shirt front, began by bowing when Klaus Heinrich stretched out his hand to him, but then at once spoke to him in his free and fatherly way. The Prince seemed to be rejecting a proposal, and laughed uneasily as he did so, but then a number of people distinctly heard Doctor Ueberbein say: "No--nonsense, Klaus Heinrich, what was the good of learning? Why did the Swiss governess teach you your steps in your tenderest years? I can't understand why you go to balls if you won't dance? One, two, three, we'll soon find you a partner!" And with a continual shower of witticisms he presented to the Prince four or five young maidens, whom he dropped on without ceremony and dragged forward. They ducked and shot up again, one after the other, in the trailing fluctuations of the Court curtsey, set their teeth and did their best. Klaus Heinrich stood with his heels together and murmured, "Delighted, quite delighted." To one he went so far as to say: "It's a jolly ball, isn't it?"