“Do you know,” said Otto, laughing, “you are the only entertaining woman on this earth!”
“O, you have found out so much,” she cried.
“Yes, madam, I grow wiser with advancing years,” he returned.
“Years!” she repeated. “Do you name the traitors? I do not believe in years; the calendar is a delusion.”
“You must be right, madam,” replied the Prince. “For six years that we have been good friends, I have observed you to grow younger.”
“Flatterer,” cried she, and then, with a change, “But why should I say so,” she added, “when I protest I think the same? A week ago I had a council with my father director, the glass; and the glass replied, ‘Not yet!’ I confess my face in this way once a month. O! a very solemn moment. Do you know what I shall do when the mirror answers, ‘Now’?”
“I cannot guess,” said he.
“No more can I,” returned the Countess. “There is such a choice! Suicide, gambling, a nunnery, a volume of memoirs, or politics—the last, I am afraid.”
“It is a dull trade,” said Otto.