_P. Coun._ Behold the father of us both, Sophia! _Soph._ O heaven! _P. Coun._ How! _Soph._ That is the grand question that must give us pause! (Clarenbach makes a sign to Frederica and Gernau, and they retire with him.) SCENE IX. SOPHIA, Privy Counsellor CLARENBACH. _P. Conn._ I have fulfilled one of your conditions. The other-- _Soph._ You have lost all your influence over my father. _P. Coun._ Yes! _Soph._ Then my condition is too hard,--I cancel it. _P. Coun._ Heaven bless you! _Soph._ I will substitute an other in its place, which depends entirely on yourself. _P. Coun._ Then it is already accomplished. _Soph._ Am I your choice even without any inheritance? _P. Coun._ Without any inheritance whatever! _Soph._ Your hand and heart are all I crave. To be candid, I expected nothing less from you. Now for the arduous question; hear me! The disposition in which I find you to day is charming, but not meritorious. You have not been moulded to it by virtue, but frightened into it by vice. You are irritable, you are weak, you are ambitious. A time may come, when neither your father, nor the woman you love will be able to influence you, as they luckily do at present. _P. Coun._ You wrong me. _Soph._ No, my friend. Give me time to proceed. You are irritable, weak, and ambitious! Do you think, that, on the summit which you now stand, you can render yourself useful to your fellow subjects with these three--I had almost called them vices. _P. Coun._ Not if I remain as I am. _Soph._ You have hitherto been the instrument of strangers, and, in proportion as you rose in extrinsic pomp, you sunk in intrinsic merit. _P. Coun._ True, it is too true. _Soph._ You are not possessed of sufficient resolution to stand at the helm of a government; but you have genius, a good heart, and learning enough, sufficient to secure a tranquil passage through life. Let my love supply the whole of my father's considerable fortune; I cannot muster the requisite resolution. Can your esteem for me induce you to renounce the gilded splendor of state and office, and to spend the remainder of your days in the calm retirement of obscurity? (Eagerly.) Have you the resolution, Clarenbach, to resign the Privy Counsellorship?--I do not want an immediate answer. _P. Coun._ Love shakes my resolution! but to resign, would it not lower me in the public eye? _Soph._ Would it lower you in your own mind? _P. Coun._ No. But-- _Soph._ Contentment must dwell here. (Pointing to his heart.) If ever you have felt content, I need say no more. _P. Coun._ No! Oh no!