"I admire your wonderful imagination," he said, "and if I were a poet, I would envy it. How charming to see poetical elements everywhere, and also to be at once clear as to the arranging and dove-tailing which torments the poet so much. You should really make a book of it. Even if the subject is not quite new--where, indeed, could, quite new ones be found nowadays?--a clever author will see something new even in the most hackneyed subject. For myself, of course, the second volume would be specially interesting, when the old friend of the family comes on the stage; for him, of course, the business cannot possibly end well." "I beg," said the Princess, "that you, will not spoil my text. I have by no means said that my hero is old. On the contrary, he is in the prime of life; of that age when we women only begin to find you men amiable, and rightly so, for you only begin then to become amiable; somewhere about fifty, we'll say." Bertram bowed. "Accept my sincere thanks," he said, "in my own name, seeing I am of the amiable age, and in the name of my many contemporaries. You are taking a load off my heart, for now, equally of course, the issue need by no means be so bad. The chances for and against are anyhow equal." "There, again, you go too far," replied the Princess. "The bad issue, to be sure, is no longer necessary; it must, however, always remain probable." "Always?" "I think so, even under the most favourable circumstances." "What would you call favourable circumstances?" "We will talk of that later on. Let us first take a specially unfavourable case, which, perhaps, is so all the more the less it would appear to be so. It seems, for example, that our fair young friend would feel less keenly the difference in years, and all the unpleasant and awkward things connected with it, and resulting from it. She is--at least so I judge her to be, and that is sufficient for our purpose--one of those deeply serious natures who are greatly given to confounding the wild phantasies of the head with the true enthusiasm of the heart, and who will conscientiously, and to its utmost consequences, adhere to what once they have seized upon and vowed. But I presume that she is as passionate as she is conscientious; and if her passion and her conscience once come in conflict, the struggle will be terrific. She may come forth victorious from the battle, but what avails a victory that ends in resignation? There we should have an issue, which may be convenient enough for the oldish husband, but then--his convenience and her happiness are surely very different things."