STRÜBEL. For that's merely the ideal of every little country girl.

THE PRINCESS. Not her ideal—her daily life which she counts as naught. It is my ideal because I can never attain it.

STRÜBEL. Oh, I say, my dear young girl! It can't be as bad as that! A young girl like you—so charming and—I don't want to be forward, but if I could only help you a bit!

THE PRINCESS. Have you got to be helping all the time? Before, it was only a cheap lunch, now it's actually——

STRÜBEL. Yes, yes, I'm an awful donkey, I know, but——

THE PRINCESS. [Smiling.] Don't say any more about it, dear friend! I like you that way.

STRÜBEL. [Feeling oppressed by her superiority.] Really, you are an awfully strange person! There's something about you that—that——

THE PRINCESS. Well?

STRÜBEL. I can't exactly define it. Tell me, weren't you wanting to go into the woods before? It's so—so oppressive in here.

THE PRINCESS. Oppressive? I don't find it so at all—quite the contrary.