Strenuous opposition was encountered by her to this project, by every one of her relatives, hardly excluding the Princess Ottilie; 'for,' said that sagacious recluse, 'your horses may show you, my dear, the dangers of a rein too loose.'
'I want no rein at all,' said Wanda. 'You forget that, to my thinking, marriage should never be bondage; two people with independent wills, tastes, and habits should mutually concede a perfect independence of action to each other. When one must yield, it must be the woman.'
'Those are very fine theories,' the Princess remarked with caution.
'I hope we shall put them in practice,' said Wanda, with unruffled good humour. 'Dear mother, I am sure you can understand that I want him to feel he is wholly independent of me. To what I love best on earth shall I dole out a niggard largesse from my wealth? If I were capable of doing so he would grow in time to hate me, and his hatred would be justified.'
'I never should have supposed you would become so romantic,' said the Princess.
'It will make him independent of you,' objected Prince Lilienhöhe.
'That is what, beyond all, I desire him to be,' she answered.
'It is an infatuation,' sighed Cardinal Vàsàrhely, out of her hearing, 'when Egon would have brought to her a fortune as large as her own.'
'You think water should always run to the sea,' said Princess Ottilie; 'surely that is great waste sometimes?'
'I think you are as infatuated as she is,' murmured the Cardinal. 'You forget that had she not been inspired with this unhappy sentiment she would have most probably left Hohenszalras to the Church.'