“Ah, then you believe that he can hear me?” asked the voice of the prebendary, triumphantly. “Then he is quite close to us? Well, I will shout it louder than before: this little Prince Charles von Lichtenstein is a conceited boy, who deserves to be chastised!”
The prince rushed toward the door, pale, with quivering lips and sparkling eyes. But the baroness encircled his arm with her hands and kept him back.
“You will not go,” she whispered. “You will not disgrace me so as to prove to him by your appearance that he was right, and that you were with me while I refused to admit him.”
“But do you not hear that he insults me?” asked the young prince, trying to disengage himself from her hands.
“Why do you listen to other voices when you are with me?” she said, reproachfully. “What do you care for the opinion of that man, whom I abhor from the bottom of my heart, and whom people only tolerate in their saloons because they are afraid of his anger and his slanderous tongue? Oh, do not listen to what he says, my friend! You are here with me, and I have yet to tell you many things. But you do not heed my words! Your eyes are constantly fixed on the door. Oh, sir, look at me, listen to what I have to say to you. I believe I still owe you a reply, do I not? Well, I will now reply to the question which you have so often put to me, and to which I have heretofore only answered by silence!”
“Oh, not now, not now!” muttered the prince.
“Yes, I will tell you now what has been so long burning in my soul as a sweet secret,” whispered Fanny, constantly endeavoring to draw him away from the door. “You have often asked me if I loved you, and my heart made the reply which my lips were afraid to pronounce. But now I will confess it to you: yes, I love you; my whole soul belongs to you! I have secretly longed for the hour when I might at last confess this to you, when my heart would exult in pronouncing the sweet words, ‘I love you!’ Good Heaven! you hear it, and yet you remain silent—you avert your face? Do you despise me now because I, the married woman, confess to you that I love you? Is your silence to tell me that you do not love me any longer?”
He knelt down before her and kissed her dress and her hands. “I love you boundlessly,” he said with panting breath; “you are to me the quintessence of all happiness, virtue, and beauty. I shall love you to the last hour of my life!”
“If Prince Charles von Lichtenstein should be near,” shouted the voice of the prebendary, close to the door, “if he should be able to hear my words, I want him to hear that I pronounce him a coward, a fool, and impostor—a coward, because he silently suffers himself to be insulted—”
The prince, unable to restrain his feelings any longer, rushed forward and impetuously pushing back the baroness, who still endeavored to detain him, he violently opened the door.