"And, my dear, you will be happy again."
Anna knit her brows in painful thought. "If by being wretched I had managed to make the others happy it wouldn't have been so bad. At least it wouldn't have been so completely silly. The only thing I can think of is that I must have hit upon the wrong people."
"I Gott bewahre!" cried the princess with energy. "They are all alike. Send these away, you get them back in a different shape. Faces and names would be different, never the women. They would all be Treumanns and Elmreichs, and not a single one worth anything in the whole heap."
"Well, I shall not desert them—Else and Emilie, I mean. They need help, both of them. And after all, it is simple selfishness for ever wanting to be happy oneself. I have begun to see that the chief thing in life is not to be as happy as one can, but to be very brave."
The princess sighed. "Poor Axel," she said.
Anna started, and blushed violently. "Pray what has my being brave to do with Herr von Lohm?" she inquired severely.
"Why, you are going to be brave at his expense, poor man. You must not expect anything from me, my dear, but common sense. You give up all hope of being happy because you think it your duty to go on sacrificing him and yourself to a set of thankless, worthless women, and you call it being brave. I call it being unnatural and silly."
"It has never been a question of Herr von Lohm," said Anna coldly, indeed freezingly. "What claims has he on me? My plans were all made before I knew that he existed."
"Oh, my dear, your plans are very irritating things. The only plan a sensible young woman ought to make is to get as good a husband as possible as quickly as she can."
"Why," said Anna, rising in her indignation, and preparing to leave a princess suddenly become objectionable, "why, you are as bad as Susie!"