"Oh! Do they not? I think you are wrong. Many of them marry only because the man they marry makes them afraid. I have seen it done in the country where I come from;--Germany I mean--and everywhere here it is the same. I am not a dragon myself; but if you are that sort of woman, these might help you to pretend. Do you not think you could be afraid of me enough to marry me?" This was strange wooing. "I am not afraid of you at all," said Charlotte; "but I like you--very much." "Ah, then you want me to be quite another person? Very well, that make it so much easier. Then now I will tell you what I am really like; and you will try not to laugh, will you not?" Charlotte composed her countenance to as near gravity as was possible, and the Prince went on. "I am just one little child that has lost its way through having grown so big and strong. And I want some nice, kind woman, that is more sensible than I, to be a mother to me--to take me in her arms and let me cry to her when I am afraid. Herr Gott! I am so frightened sometimes--how I have cried! Of the dark night, of loneliness, of the stillness when there is no noise near, but only _that_, something far, far away, that comes! Everything frightens me when I am alone. Fighting? No, I am not afraid of that; it is this wait, wait, wait--for what? And I want to have one woman just at my heart, and her voice at my ear, and children--yes, plenty of them; and when I have plenty children, then I shall not be afraid of loneliness any more." "But if you so dislike it, why did you go away into the wilds?" "Ah! I had to run away from the music. That was awful! And then--have you lived in a German town?--that is awful too. Do not think that I am asking you to live in a German town? No: I could not be so cruel. So now I tell you my secret." "You mean the dragons?" "The dragons? No, no! They go with me,--they are part of me, they are 'in the know': but they themselves are not the secret. That is much, much bigger thing still!" He paused, and she saw his blue eyes looking far away, as though he had forgotten her presence. "Well?" she said encouragingly, "you are going to tell me, are you not?" "Oh, yes! That is what I am come for." His tone was quite business-like now. "That big country I told you of--it belongs to nobody. You know that those North Americans say that nobody from Europe is to have it, though they do not use it themselves. Well, I am going to have it." "You?" "Schnapps-Wasser,--me, with my water-bottles. I have turned them into a company; and they are going to give for it--well, never mind how much. But with what my bottles bring me I can make that country so that no power in the world can prevent it from being a great country to itself." "But you say it has no coast?"