HAGEN. How long will it be before you know it?
EST. How dare you?
HAGEN. Listen. I am a man accustomed to command. I have no time to play with conventions... I cannot dally and plead. But I love you. I cannot live without you! And I will shake the foundations of the world to get you!
EST. [Staring, fascinated; whispers.] Prince Hagen!
HAGEN. All this... [waving his hand] I did in the hope that it would bring you here... so that I might have a chance to tell you. Simply for that one purpose. I have broken the business world to my will... that also was to make you mine!
EST. [Wildly.] You have ruined my father!
HAGEN. Your father has played this game, and his path is strewn with the rivals he has ruined. He knows that, and you know it. Now I have played the game; and I have beaten him. It took me one day to bring him down... [Laughs.] It will take me less time to put him back again.
EST. But why, why?
HAGEN. Listen, Estelle. I came to this civilization of yours, and looked at it. It seemed to me that it was built upon knavery and fraud ... that it was altogether a vile thing... rotten to the core of it! And I said I would smash it, as a child smashes a toy; I would toss it about... as your brother the poet tosses his metaphors. But then I saw you, and in a flash all that was changed. You were beautiful... you were interesting. You were something in the world worth winning... something I had not known about before. But you stood upon the pinnacle of Privilege... you gathered the clouds about your head. How should I climb to you?
EST. [Frightened.] I see!