Anna was at a disadvantage because of her imperfect German. She could not repress Karlchen when he was unduly kind as she would have done in English, and with his mother presiding, as it were, at their opening friendship, she did not like to begin by looking lofty. Luckily the princess was unusually chatty that evening. She sat next to Karlchen, and continually joined in the talk. She was cheerful amiability itself, and insisted upon being told all about those sons of her acquaintances who were in his regiment. When he half turned his back on her and dropped his voice to a rapid undertone, thereby making himself completely incomprehensible to Anna, the princess pleasantly advised him to speak very slowly and distinctly, for unless he did Miss Estcourt would certainly not understand. In a word, she took him under her wing whether he would or no, and persisted in her friendliness in spite of his mother's increasingly desperate efforts to draw her into conversation. "Why do we not go out, dear Anna?" cried Frau von Treumann at last, unable to endure Princess Ludwig's behaviour any longer. "Look what a fine evening it is--and quite warm." And she who till then had gone about shutting windows, and had been unable to bear the least breath of air, herself opened the glass doors leading into the garden and went out. But although they all followed her, nothing was gained by it. She could have stamped her foot with rage at the princess's conduct. Here was everything needful for the beginning of a successful courtship--starlight, a murmuring sea, warm air, fragrant bushes, a girl who looked like Love itself in the dusk in her pale beauty, a young man desiring nothing better than to be allowed to love her, and a mother only waiting to bless. But here too, unfortunately, was the princess. She was quite appallingly sociable--"The spite of the woman!" thought Frau von Treumann, for what could it matter to her?--and remained fixed at Anna's side as they paced slowly up and down the grass, monopolising Karlchen's attention with her absurd questions about his brother officers. Anna walked between them, thinking of other things, holding up her trailing white dress with one hand, and with the other the edges of her blue cloak together at her neck. She was half a head taller than Karlchen, and so was his mother, who walked on his other side. Karlchen, becoming more and more enamoured the longer he walked, looked up at her through his eyelashes and told himself that the Treumanns were certainly in luck, for he had stumbled on a goddess. "The grass is damp," cried Frau von Treumann, interrupting the endless questions. "My dear princess--your rheumatism--and I who so easily get colds. Come, we will go off the grass--we are not young enough to risk wet feet." "I do not feel it," said the princess, "I have thick shoes. But you, dear Frau von Treumann, do not stay if you have fears."