At five he stabbed a last cluster of quavers on to the paper, closed his brief-case and reeled sightlessly towards the landing stage. The opera was finished.

There was no boat, but that was of no importance. He turned to look at the little temple. Would they transport it as they had transported the summer-house where Mozart had written The Magic Flute? Would there be a Klaskeum like the Mozarteum at Salzburg, or would people merely come to Pfaffenstein in charabancs to see where he had worked? No, where he had lived. There could be no doubt but that Farne, after last night, would install them here.

His mind raced ahead to the production. He would need a much larger bass drum than any they possessed, thought the composer, wondering if even now, in some fertile alm above the castle, there grazed two outsize and expiring cows whose hides would give the necessary sound. Or simply two cows, expiring or not, since it was after all perfectly possible to shoot them.

At this point he perceived, not far away, a rowing-boat containing Tessa, the Prince of Spittau and a quantity of dogs.

Should he hail them? But no. The dogs seemed to be wet and there were a great many of them. Extracting a leberwurst sandwich from his pocket, Klasky prepared to wait.

Whether it was the uplifting effect of Mozart’s masterpiece or just a flash of arbitrary inspiration from above, Maxi had woken on the last day of the house party knowing exactly where to propose to Tessa.

For just as Mexicans prefer to eat, sleep and make love in the place they have been accustomed to from birth, namely a hammock, so Prince Maximilian was happiest performing life’s functions on the water. It was in a boat, therefore, that the prince decided to put his happiness to the test — and this time he would brook no opposition. Putzerl should, and would, hear him out.

But Tessa had in any case given up the fight. The opera was over and tomorrow she would leave Pfaffenstein for good. She could not avoid a tête à tête with Maxi for ever.

Four o’clock, therefore, saw Maxi rowing strongly towards the centre of the lake, the Princess of Pfaffenstein captive in the stern. Not only did he have Tessa, and in a most romantic setting — for the castle rearing up behind him looked, in the slanting, golden light, more like something out of a fairy tale than ever — but he had the dogs. To get five dogs into a small rowing-boat is not easy, but he had managed it and though the animals were a little bit on edge owing to the unfortunate proximity of a brace of mallard and a swan, they were behaving well. The red setter had her head in Tessa’s lap and was dribbling affectionately on her dress, while the water spaniel lay across her feet. To emphasize even more that his business was love and not sport, Maxi had left behind not only his gun but also his rod, and this despite the fact that the lake, cruelly underfished since the decline of the Pfaffenstein fortunes, was teeming with trout.

If Maxi supposed, however, that by taking to the water he would be unobserved, he was mistaken. The news that the prince was about to put his fortunes to the test had spread like wildfire round the castle. In the West Tower his mother, the Swan Princess, was stationed behind the late Prince of Pfaffenstein’s telescope, which she had securely trained on her son. Putzerl’s aunts, though they would not have stooped to such tactics, stood on either side of her, more than ready to receive details at second hand. The Archduke Sava, aware of the importance of the occasion, had abandoned his watch on the sunbathing soprano and carried his telescope into Monteforelli’s bedroom which faced the lake. Maxi’s valet, exceptionally keen-sighted, had climbed on to the balustrade outside the servants’ attics and was relaying information back to the castle maids.

And down on the terrace overhanging the lake, Nerine picked up the field-glasses Guy had left when he went for his interview with Witzler. This was better than looking at some red-legged hawk as Guy had wanted her to do!

‘He’s doing it!’ cried the Swan Princess. ‘He’s proposing, I’m sure! He’s stopped rowing!’

And indeed the Prince of Spittau had, at that moment, shipped his oars.

‘Putzerl,’ he began. ‘Tessa…’

The Princess of Pfaffenstein, who had been sitting quietly in the stern with her hands on the tiller lines, raised her head. Maxi’s eyes were deeply poached, his duelling scar throbbed like a wound. It was coming, then. Steeling herself, feeling the familiar guilt creep over her, Tessa said, ‘Yes, Maxi?’

‘Putzerl, you know how fond of you I’ve always been,’ said Maxi, and indeed he spoke the truth. No one had played ‘Cowboys and Indians’ as willingly and as often as she had done.

‘I’m very fond of you, too,’ said Tessa, repressing a sigh.

A trout, a five-pounder by the sound of it, rose very close to them. Maxi resolutely ignored it, as did the older dogs who were perfectly trained. Not so the young setter, who raised her head from Tessa’s lap and moaned with agitation, setting off the swan who approached hissing in fury, causing the labrador who was of a heroic turn of mind to rush to the stern and emit a fusillade of barks. A period of considerable confusion followed as they beat off the swan, restrained the wolfhound who had scrambled over the oars to aid his friend, and shipped a considerable amount of water.

For a moment Maxi wondered whether, after all, it had been such a good idea to bring the dogs. Tessa now seemed more worried about the wolfhound, who had scratched his nose on a rowlock, than she was about him. She was also, as he was himself, extremely wet.

‘So don’t you think… Tessa… please? I know I’ve asked you before, but now Pfaffenstein’s sold… I mean, you can’t go on working for the opera company for ever, and—’ He broke off. ‘Sit!’ he ordered furiously.

The pointer, who had leapt to her feet and was gazing with an air of quivering attention at the wooded island, turned a reproachful head. She had, she wished to make this clear, heard something.

‘So Tessa, do please marry me. I would be so happy. Everyone would be so pleased. And we get on so well.’

Tessa had picked up the bailer and was trying to reduce the pool of water in which they sat and Maxi, determined to pursue his advantage — for she had not yet said ‘No’ — plunged into the delights of Spittau. ‘We would have such great times together. You could breed water spaniels, you know how you love them. Of course, I know Mother’s a bit difficult but… And I mean it isn’t as though you’re liable to rheumatism. You’re healthy, Putzerl, although you’re so little. That’s one of the things I like about you.’

The mallards now returned and foolishly approached the boat, quacking and fussing, while the dogs turned with desperate appeal to their master. Was nothing going to happen? How long were they expected to endure it?

Not for ever, it seemed. A long, high-pitched whistle sounded from the wooded island and without a second’s hesitation the pointer, the labrador and the spaniel leapt into the water.

‘Idiot! Half-wit! Moron!’ yelled Maxi, shaking his fist in the direction of the island, with its little temple, from which the sound had come.

Yet no one was to blame. That the noise, a piercing A flat, emitted by one of Klasky’s characters (the engine-greaser who has a fit in the second act) was the same as the whistle to which Maxi had trained his dogs, was a coincidence no one could have foreseen.

‘They’re having a little bit of trouble,’ reported the Swan Princess as the puzzled faces of the dogs, hauled back into the boat by an irate Maxi, swam into focus, followed by a dangerous rocking as the animals shook themselves. ‘But it’s all right now. Tessa’s got hold of the dogs and Maxi’s rowing again.’

And indeed Maxi was now in a state of desperation when nothing could stop him. Bracing his feet against the wolfhound and rowing strongly away from the island, he said, ‘And after all, we’re both descended from—’ But here he veered off again, because it was no good talking to Putzerl about lineage and breeding and all that. The fact that he could trace his descent straight back to Barbarossa cut absolutely no ice with Tessa, who was apt to go off at half-cock when he mentioned anything like that. He returned to the subject of Spittau. ‘Maybe we could put in some central heating…’

He flushed, on delicate ground, and Tessa, on whose lap the soaking and frustrated water spaniel had settled, felt the familiar guilt intensify.

Guy had paid generously for Pfaffenstein. The cheque she had been handed, signed by the Associated Investment Company, in these inflationary times ran into millions of kroner. Half of this would go in trust for the aunts, and there were debts to be paid, but even so it left her with enough money to shore up Maxi’s imperilled Wasserburg and put heating into the mouldering rooms.

‘Maxi, I haven’t got quite as much money as your mother thinks, perhaps. My father left a lot of debts and they have to be paid. But I’ve enough all the same to—’ She tried again. ‘Would you let me help a little with Spittau? Do the roof at least, so that it can be preserved? I mean, we’re almost relatives, aren’t we?’

Maxi’s eyes became vibrantly convex; his duelling scar turned livid. His manhood had been outraged, his honour impugned. ‘How can you suggest such a thing, Putzerl?’

‘I’m sorry, Maxi. I didn’t mean any harm. Only, I don’t know any other way to marry except for love. A particular kind of love. And that isn’t… how I love you,’ said Tessa, her voice very low.

‘But Tessa, we aren’t like that. Like ordinary people. I mean, being in love.’