The selection of a spouse, though integrity or flaw of character may not reveal itself to the world for years, surely indicates as much wisdom—or lack of it—on either side of a marriage as do the attributes of character a man or woman appears to possess in his or her own right. Husbands or wives were not islands unto themselves. A spouse is a mirror into one’s own soul. Wise men and women recognize wisdom and seek it. Fools are content to join themselves with those of like persuasions. The consequences are enjoyed, or suffered, by each in his turn—with greater blessings, or greater ills, as the years slip quickly by.

Such were the divergent consequential fates of the two former companions of the heart, and present friends of convenience—the wives of Baron Heinrich von Dortmann and Count Ernst von Schmundt.

The one woman had been impressed with worldly acclaim, honors, and reputation. The other had chosen a quiet, thoughtful man considered something of a dullard by the peers of his society. While the count and countess were hosting parties and amassing a fortune that was the envy of the entire region, the baron next door was tending a ridiculous garden and collecting books and opening his home to strangers and passersby—even peasants, Ingrid had heard!

She loved Marion, though she hadn’t understood at the time, nor had she understood since, what she saw in the man. That she had married a fool was obvious enough. Yet he did have a daughter who would one day inherit the estate, and that in itself was enough to make up for every innocent notion the man himself might possess.

Neither woman knew that it had been the baron himself who had rescued the count from complete financial disaster. Dortmann had gone to Schmundt in private at the height of his troubles with a secret offer of 425,000 marks, exactly the amount necessary to clear the debt off his property, which was only days from foreclosure. The only requirement, the baron told his neighbor, was that no one should know the source of the funds. Schmundt agreed, took the cashier’s draft with stoically Germanic humility—as much meekness, that is, as the German temperament is capable of summoning—thanked him with a simple though heartfelt danke, and the gift had never been mentioned between them again. Nor did the count, when his fortunes were again on the rise and he found himself flush with reichsmarks, once offer to repay the baron so much as a pfennig. In his heart of hearts, in fact, the count secretly resented what he thought was the baron’s holier-than-thou interference and vowed, if Dortmann ever found himself in dire straits, to instruct his own solicitor to buy the estate out from under him.