"Change places with the Emperor? Not—unless I were obliged, gna' Fräulein. Not now, at all events," with a meaning bow and glance.
"Thank you. You are quite a courtier. One of the things they say of him in England is that he dislikes women. But perhaps he does not understand them?"
"Indeed, lady? I had not heard that they were so difficult of comprehension."
"Ah, that shows how little you chamois-hunters know them. Why, we can't even understand ourselves! Though—a very odd thing—we have no difficulty in reading one another, and knowing all each other's faults."
"That would seem to say a man should get a woman to choose his wife for him."
"I'm not so sure. Yet the Emperor, we hear, will let his Chancellor choose his."
"Ah! Were you told this also in England?" 54
"Yes. For the gossip is that she's an English Princess. Now, what is the good of being an Emperor if he can't even pick out a wife to please himself?"
"I know little about such high matters, gna' Fräulein. But I fancied that Royal folk chose wives to please the people rather than themselves. If the lady be of good blood, virtuous, of the right religion, and pleasant to look at, why—those are the principal things, I suppose."
"So should I not suppose, if I were a man—and an emperor. I should want to fall in love."