"You are a princess, and I am merely a military officer."
"And where would the princess now be but for the officer who found her wandering in the wild-wood?"
"Princess—Barbara—I love you—"
"I have been waiting for those words, Paul."
"I love you—how deeply no words of mine can tell; but when I think of the difference in our rank—"
"But you must not think of it, Paul," she interrupted, still within the circle of his arms, and placing her finger with a witching air on his lip.
"It must be that we part. The law of Czernova forbids our union."
"The Diet shall repeal that law."
"Your ministers, your nobility, your people will never tolerate an untitled Englishman."
"I am ruler in Czernova," she answered proudly. "No one shall dictate to me as to my choice of a consort."