Nevertheless, he was trying to make up his mind to pay court to
Ann Howland, a young lady whose dashing beauty was somewhat overpoised
by salient force of character and an uncompromisingly keen and direct
mind, but whose fortune eclipsed by several millions that of the
high-born maiden selected by his family.
Here was a heaven-sent interval, with intellectual companionship in
addition to the game of the gods. Being a German girl, Gisela Doering
would be aware that he could not marry out of his class, unless the
plebeian pill were heavily gilded. To do him justice, he would not have
married the wealthiest plebeian in Germany. An American: that was
another matter. If there were such a thing as an aristocracy in this
absurd country which pretended to be a democracy and whose "society" was
erected upon the visible and screaming American dollar, no doubt Miss
Howland belonged to the highest rank. In Germany she would have been a
princess--probably of a mediatized house, and, he confessed it amiably
enough, she looked the part more unapologetically than several he could
mention.
So did Gisela Doering. He sighed that a woman who would have graced the
court of his Kaiser should have been tossed by a bungling fate into the
rank and file of the good German people; so laudably content to play
their insignificant part in their country's magnificent destiny.
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