'Where?' asked Frances laughing. 'To Austria, where we shall be caught by the Emperor's police: to Prussia, where the Brandenburgian would stop us. Let us run! That is all very well, but how and with what? You have nothing, except your salary at the court, and I have only the favour of the Prince and Princess.'
'But your mother's heart--'
'That heart will search out happiness for me in diamonds--it understands no other.'
'Frances, my goddess! How cruel you are to-day, you take all my hope from me!'
'I can't give that which I don't possess myself,' said the girl coolly and sadly.
'For you don't love me.'
The lovely girl looked at him reproachfully.
'I never loved anybody but you!' said she. 'I shall never be able to love anybody else, and because I love you, I should like to speak frankly with you.'
Watzdorf cast his eyes on the floor.
'I understand,' he muttered.--'You wish to convince me, that because you love me, you cannot be mine, and that I must give you up. Such is the logic of love in courts. Because you love me, because I love you, you must marry another man--'