“Yes, Prince; latterly I have thought that I can think so.”
“At last, at last, irresolute little Imma! Oh, how I thank you, I thank you! But in that case you're not afraid, and will let the whole world know that you belong to me?”
“Let them know that you belong to me, Royal Highness, if it's all the same to you.”
“That I will, Imma, loudly and surely. But only on one condition, namely, that we don't only think of our own happiness in a selfish and frivolous way, but regard it all from the point of view of the Mass, the Whole. For the public weal and our happiness, you see, are interdependent.”
“Well said, Prince. For without our studies of the public weal I should have found it difficult to decide to have confidence in you.”
“And without you, Imma, to warm my heart, I should have found it difficult to tackle such practical problems.”
“Right; then we'll see what we can do, each in our own place. You with your folk and I—with my father.”
“Little sister,” he answered quietly, and pressed her more closely to him in the dance. “Little bride.”
Undoubtedly a peculiar plighting of troth.
To be frank, everything was not yet settled, or nearly settled. Looking back, one must say that, if one factor in the whole had been altered or removed, the whole would have been in imminent danger of coming to nothing. What a blessing, the chronicler feels tempted to cry, what a blessing that there was a man at the head of affairs who faced the music firmly and undaunted, indeed not without a dash of rashness, and did not judge a thing to be impossible just because it had never happened before.