"For what has happened since! What has happened?"
"How can you ask? Am I not Baroness Cloten? And why am I that? Only because you would none of my love! Oh, Oswald, I cannot tell you what a tumult there was in my heart that night after I had left you. My heart was breaking; I could have cried aloud; I could have thrown myself down on the ground; I could have died. And yet I sent Cloten to my aunt to ask her for my hand. How could I do it? You do not know women, if you ask that. Cloten, or any one; I did not care who, at that moment I had only the one thought--to be avenged on you by making myself as wretched as I possibly could, so that you should have my unhappiness on your conscience, and I might be able to say to you one of these days: You would have it so."
"This 'one of these days' has come sooner than you probably expected. I would cheerfully give many years of my life--I would willingly die on the spot--if I could by so doing make you free again; as free as you were when we met for the first time at Barnewitz."
"What could I do with my freedom if I were to lose you?" replied Emily, tenderly and teasingly. "No, no, Oswald; ten thousand times rather just as it is now. If you will love me a little----"
"Can you doubt it?"
"Perhaps--but never mind; only a little, and I am satisfied. I can bear being called Baroness Cloten; I can bear your loving another----"
"Another!"
"Yes, sir, another; who certainly is very beautiful, but as proud as beautiful; and who, you may rest assured, would not hesitate to sacrifice her love to her pride, if she can ever love really, which I doubt. Oh, Oswald, I wish you had seen her last night! I know people call me coquettish, and I may be so when I have a chance of making a fool of a man; but then I do it merrily, and not by casting down my eyes prudishly, as Helen does. I can tell you I was angry with her last night for your sake. I thought: there is the poor man dying for love for you; and here are you, the lady of his heart, and you allow yourself to be courted to your heart's content, and by whom? By the essence of all foolish conceit that was ever put into a handsome uniform; by the king of all ball-heroes in varnished boots and well-fitting kid-gloves; by the fashion-model of our young dandies, who try in vain to imitate him in the way he holds his head and snarls out his Non Ma'am, oui Ma'moiselle!"
"And who is this hero?" asked Oswald, laughing, in a way which did not sound quite natural.
"A Prince Waldenberg--Waldenberg-Malikowsky-Letbus."