"Your Highness! I have long made the human mind an object of study, and it is not new to find that love is the most powerful factor we have to deal with on earth. It is strong, but not lasting. To-day your Highness may be feeling as you say; but the human heart is as variable as the sky; and earth, the fatherland, is its antipodes. To-day we may feel as though we had cast away a whole paradise of bliss in descending from heaven to earth; to-morrow we discover that our supposed heaven was but a cloud which glistened in the sun and disappeared, leaving 'not a wrack behind.' Earth, on the contrary, remains firm beneath our feet; it never loses its power of gravity. What? Could your Imperial Highness stand by with folded arms and see the whole monarchy, a prey to the flames, sink into ashes at your feet, that your head might rest undisturbed on the lap of the woman you love?"
"Well, and even then?"
"Even then? Even in that case I have my clear instructions. Your Highness is the master of your own future. But the Russian Empire is the master of its own fate. If the Czarevitch prizes the prosaic domestic life of a citizen higher than the maintenance of the empire he has received from his ancestors, I have yet one other proposition to make to him. His Majesty the Czar will elevate the morganatic wife of the Czarevitch, Johanna Grudzinska, to the rank of a Polish princess, with the family name of 'Lovicz'! In perpetual lien he will make over to her the royal Lovicz domain of Masover Voivodeship upon the Grand Duke declaring her to be his legitimate wife; her children to be Princes of Lovicz and heirs to their mother's kingdom, with the rank of Russian bojars—in virtue of which Grand Duke Constantine will resign the title of Czarevitch and the right of succession to the Russian Empire, for himself and his heirs, forever, in favor of his brother."
Constantine struck the table emphatically with his fist.
"Rather to-day than to-morrow!"
"I entreat your Highness not to reply too hastily! The sky is ever changing; not so the earth. I am convinced of the truth of your Imperial Highness's words; but a short delay cannot be of any vital importance. Let your Highness try absence from the lady, say, for a week or a month. Or send her for a time, as in truth her delicate health requires, to Ems or Carlsbad. Separate yourself from her, so that you are not seeing each other daily, hourly; that she may not always be your centre, but that you may both come in contact with other people, other surroundings, other interests—"
"And do you suppose that absence, whether longer or shorter, could estrange us from one another?"
"It is an old story, yet ever new."
"That one short month could suffice to cause some new face to blot out the other from our hearts? You are a fool, man!"
"It is but giving it a trial."