MARG. I didn't give it a thought. I suppose it's because I loved you from the very start. For in my dreams, I always conjured up a man of your likeness. I always seemed to realize that it could only be a man like you who would make me happy. Blood--is no empty thing. Nothing whatever can weigh in the balance with that. You see, that's why I can't resist the belief-- CLEM. What? MARG. Oh, sometimes I think I must have blue blood in my veins, too. CLEM. How so? MARG. It's not improbable? CLEM. I'm afraid I don't understand. MARG. But I told you that members of the nobility were entertained at our house-- CLEM. Well, and if they were? MARG. Who knows-- CLEM. Margaret, you're positively shocking. How can you hint at such a thing! MARG. I can never say what I think in your presence! That's your only shortcoming--otherwise you would be quite perfect. [_She smiles up to him._] You've won my heart completely. That very first evening, when you walked into the café with Wangenheim, I had an immediate presentiment: this is he! You came among that group, like a soul from another world. CLEM. I hope so. And I thank heaven that somehow you didn't seem to be altogether one of them, either. No. Whenever I call to mind that junto--the Russian girl, for instance, who because of her close-cropped hair gave the appearance of a student--except that she did not wear a cap-- MARG. Baranzewitsch is a very gifted painter. CLEM. No doubt. You pointed her out to me one day in the picture gallery. She was standing on a ladder at the time, copying. And then the fellow with the Polish name-- MARG. [_beginning_]. Zrkd-- CLEM. Spare yourself the pains. You don't have to use it now any more. He read something at the café while I was there, without putting himself out the least bit. MARG. He's a man of extraordinary talent. I'll vouch for it. CLEM. Oh, no doubt. Everybody is talented at the café. And then that yokel, that insufferable-- MARG. Who? CLEM. You know whom I mean. That fellow who persisted in making tactless observations about the aristocracy. MARG. Gilbert. You must mean Gilbert. CLEM. Yes. Of course. I don't feel called upon to make a brief for my class. Profligates crop up everywhere, even among writers, I understand. But, don't you know it was very bad taste on his part while one of us was present? MARG. That's just like him. CLEM. I had to hold myself in check not to knock him down. MARG. In spite of that, he was quite interesting. And, then, you mustn't forget he was raving jealous of you. CLEM. I thought I noticed that, too. [_Pause._] MARG. Good heavens, they were all jealous of you. Naturally enough--you were so unlike them. They all paid court to me because I wouldn't discriminate in favor of any one of them. You certainly must have noticed that, eh? Why are you laughing?