PRINCE.
My fate is harder far than hers. My heart is sacrificed to a miserable political consideration. She has but to take back hers, and need not bestow it against her inclination.
MARINELLI.
Take it back! "Why take it back," asks the Countess, "for a wife, whom policy and not love attaches to the Prince?" With a wife of that kind the mistress may still hold her place. It is not, therefore, for a wife that she dreads being sacrificed, but----
PRINCE.
Perhaps another mistress. What then? would you make a crime of that, Marinelli?
MARINELLI.
I, Prince? Oh, confound me not with the foolish woman whose cause I advocate--from pity! For yesterday I own she greatly moved me. She wished not to mention her attachment to you, and strove to appear cold and tranquil. But in the midst of the most indifferent topics, some expression, some allusion, escaped her, which betrayed her tortured heart. With the most cheerful demeanour she said the most melancholy things, and on the other hand uttered the most laughable jests with an air of deep distress. She has taken to books for refuge, which I fear will be her ruin.
PRINCE.
Yes, for books gave the first blow to her poor understanding. And, Marinelli, you will scarcely employ for the purpose of renewing my attachment, that which was the chief cause of our separation. If love renders her foolish, she would sooner or later have become so, even without such influence. But enough of her! To something else. Is there nothing new in town?