You
have no knowledge what my wife, your sovereign, may have suffered;
it is not for you - no, nor for me - to judge. I own myself in
fault; and were it otherwise, a man were a very empty boaster who
should talk of love and start before a small humiliation. It is in
all the copybooks that one should die to please his lady-love; and
shall a man not go to prison?'
'Love? And what has love to do with being sent to gaol?' exclaimed
the Countess, appealing to the walls and roof. 'Heaven knows I
think as much of love as any one; my life would prove it; but I
admit no love, at least for a man, that is not equally returned.
The rest is moonshine.'
'I think of love more absolutely, madam, though I am certain no more
tenderly, than a lady to whom I am indebted for such kindnesses,'
returned the Prince. 'But this is unavailing. We are not here to
hold a court of troubadours.'
'Still,' she replied, 'there is one thing you forget. If she
conspires with Gondremark against your liberty, she may conspire
with him against your honour also.'
'My honour?' he repeated. 'For a woman, you surprise me. If I have
failed to gain her love or play my part of husband, what right is
left me? or what honour can remain in such a scene of defeat? No
honour that I recognise. I am become a stranger. If my wife no
longer loves me, I will go to prison, since she wills it; if she
love another, where should I be more in place? or whose fault is it
but mine? You speak, Madame von Rosen, like too many women, with a
man's tongue.
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