Well, as an honorable man and without exaggeration I can scarcely assert that. But since early this morning a holier and a more auspicious resolution has arisen within me--
MAGDA.
Pardon me, would this holy and auspicious resolution have arisen within you just the same if I had come back to my home in poverty and shame?
VON KELLER.
My dearest Magda, I am neither self-seeking nor a fortune-hunter, but I know what is due to myself and to my position. In other circumstances there would have been no social possibility of making legitimate our old relations--
MAGDA.
I must consider myself, then, very happy in these ten long years to have worked up unconsciously towards such a high goal.
VON KELLER.
I don't know whether I am too sensitive, but that sounds almost like irony. And I hardly think that--